Exodus
by Psychic-King
Summary: Sequel to Embrace of Solitude! Naruto and his family begin a new journey that will take them far from everywhere and everyone they know. What will happen to them in this new place and what about those they left behind? WARNING, YAOI SasuNaru UPDATE CH11!
1. The Journey Begins

Well, here I am again, after a long break, releasing the sequel to Embrace of Solitude. Please note that this IS a sequel and should NOT be read before reading Embrace, as it will probably be un-comprehendible without the background Embrace gives you. To remind you all what happened last, Naruto and family was asked to leave, a fact that was accepted readily by them as they needed to seek out assistance for Mina's health problem. After a couple days Sasuke decided to follow. Kentaar, Naruto's evil brother, is no more, but his body lives on in the form of a small baby named Moab, who is currently in Naruto's care.

Sigh, I hope that catches everyone back up to point A… If not, you may want to re-read the last chapter or two of Embrace of Solitude. I hope this chapter finds all of you in good spirits! Please Review!

Quick edit: I changed all the thinking parts to italics, 'cause the other way wasn't showing up… I've also changed the section breaks, I HOPE they actually show up now, but if not, I'll continue working on it…

Exodus

Chapter One

Naruto sighed as the familiar scents of Konoha faded completely from range. It took three days of travel, going consistently slower than he would have liked, but he was now completely away from home. Feelings that he didn't have time to think about, let alone actually deal with were beginning to well up inside him. Puffing angrily at a stray strand of blond hair that kept managing to fall into his eyes, Naruto trudged forward, each step becoming more and more difficult to take. His right foot paused completely mid-step as Naruto remembered the dark look on Sasuke's almost completely hidden face as he left only two days earlier. The boy had looked pissed. Not that Naruto could really bring himself to blame Sasuke for his anger. There were just… bad circumstances surrounding his departure; bad timing. He supposed that by the time he got back Sasuke would be married, maybe to Sakura, maybe to some other girl. He certainly had his pick of them. Naruto sighed once more, right foot still dangling precariously above the ground.

Tenmar and Uzu exchanged concerned glances as they once again paused to wait for their father, who was currently standing immobile. To say he'd been out of it since they started their journey only two days before would be an understatement. The fact of the matter was that almost as often as they were stopped because of one of Mina's fits they were also stopped by their father's sudden halt. Any attempt to make him move was ignored along with any question of what was bothering him, not that his sons really felt they needed to ask; the list of things that were wrong with the blonde man was long and seemed to be growing with the passage of time.

"Do you think he's worrying about Konoha or Mina this time?" Uzu asked, dropping to the ground with a grunt. They'd been walking for almost ten hours strait, half of which he was forced to carry the most hateful creature in the whole world. He glared down at the person in question, who was happily gurgling and making little spit bubbles. Despite Naruto's insistence that there remained no traced of Kentaar in the child, Uzu was still wary. Moab might not have Kentaar's soul, but his look, his scent, his blood… All belonged to the man that Uzu had spent the whole of his life attempting to kill. To now be forced to take care of a baby form of him was almost more than he could bear.

Ganten slunk to the ground beside his brother after gently laying his burden, a young brown haired man named Rin, prompted up against a tree. "Can't you tell?" The white haired boy asked with a slight hint of mocking in his tone. "His disposition isn't dark or uncertain, it's a light anxiety. He's probably thinking about Sasuke."

Uzu took another doubtful glance at Naruto, admitting mentally that his younger brother was probably right, but unwilling to concede that fact out loud. In Uzu's mind he was nothing if not stubborn. "You think so? Maybe he's thinking about ramen."

"Why would he freeze like that for ramen?" Ganten replied, eyebrows arching and right corner of his mouth turned up.

Uzu's eyes narrowed as he stared at his brother's face; the face that Ganten put on when he was mocking the red head; and opened his mouth, sharp retort on the tip of his tongue.

"Maybe we should just set up camp now." Tenmar broke in, sending warning glares to both his younger brothers. It had been a long day, a long few days to be honest, and he was in no mood to listen to his brothers bickering. "It's a little early, but by the time Father snaps out of it it'll probably be near dark anyway."

"Should we at least move Mina?"

Uzu's question drew all eyes towards the cot that Naruto was pulling behind him. Earlier they had tried to carry Mina piggyback, thinking that the warm human contact would be comforting to her, but her fits came frequently and she had a tendency to claw at Naruto as often as she clawed at herself, so they used the cot, a large plastic and metal contraption that somehow minimized the bumps that Mina had to suffer through and was easy to drag through the forest, so that only one of them had to have their hands full with the girl. The fits came less frequently after that, although she still had them two or three times a day. For the three boys, looking at their father and sister, both hauntingly unmoving and a very drawn, tired look in both their faces, was almost too painful to bear.

"Let her be." Ganten replied at length, turning his eyes away from the scene and moving to gather some wood that lay nearby. "She's fine where she's at and Father won't notice either way."

Tenmar nodded and began pulling ramen out of one of the packs along with a pot. "We passed near a stream a while back. Come on, Uzu, let's fill the containers. Who knows how long it'll be before we pass another clean water source." Uzu nodded and grabbed the empty water containers from his pack, laying Moab on the ground near Rin.

"Keep your eye on him, eh? I don't wanna get blamed if he finds a pine cone to choke on." Uzu ended in an almost hopeful tone. He couldn't stop himself from turning back towards camp, just to check that some god of luck hadn't decided to shine down on him and actually have Moab choke on a pine cone. When he looked back he did not see Moab choking, but he did notice that Ganten was bent down low over Rin and it looked like they were talking in low tones. "Something bugs me about him…"

"Uzu…" Tenmar sighed, "We're all a little disturbed by his existence, but if Father says that he's not Kentaar then-"

"No!" Uzu cut in to his older brother's talk before he could go into full lecture mode, "I wasn't talking about the demon baby, although if you want the honest to God truth, I'm pretty frickin' disturbed about him all 'round. I was talking about Ganten's new boyfriend, Rin."

"Rin?" Tenmar glanced back towards camp, making sure that they were well out of earshot. "To be honest, he makes me a bit uneasy, too… He never talks, except to Ganten and even then, not frequently when we're around and his eyes look like he's piercing strait through to my soul."

Uzu was nodding. "Yeah… Have you ever noticed how he avoids being touched by anyone but Ganten, too? I get the feeling that he doesn't trust us." Uzu let out a humorless laugh. "HE worked for Kentaar and he's the one that doesn't trust US? What a joke."

Tenmar shook his head. It was rare that he and Uzu were on the same page mentally, which meant that it wasn't only his own mind seeing the suspicious behavior their new companion exhibited. "I talked to Father about it last night."

"Really? And?"

Tenmar shook his blonde head, missing momentarily the feel of his long hair swinging across his back as he did so. "He knows something but he said it wasn't the time to talk about it."

Uzu relaxed slightly. "Well, if Daddy knows something about it than it can't be too bad, he woulda told us right away if he thought it was something we needed to know."

Back at camp Ganten already had the fire going strong. After grabbing a few more pieces of wood to have near by, just in case the fire started going down, he turned his attention to Rin, wondering if there was anything the brown haired boy needed.

Rin shook his head in reply to Ganten's thoughts. "I'm fine but… I think your brothers are starting to suspect something about me."

"What do you mean?" Ganten demanded, wondering how they had figured out Rin's mind reading secret before Father had a chance to tell them in a family discussion setting. As he thought about it he leaned down and picked Moab up off the ground. It was amazing how quiet the baby was most of the time, rarely crying unless something was very wrong.

"No, they haven't figured out about my 'gift' but they know something's wrong." Rin once again replied to Ganten's unspoken thoughts.

Ganten sighed, wondering why he spoke out loud at all.

"I don't know, you'd think someone as smart as you would be able to get the hang of silent communication. And yes, the reason I know that your brother's are suspicious of me is because I heard their thoughts on their way to gather water." Rin added in reply to Ganten's question as it formed in his mind.

"What?" Naruto's voice broke into their conversation, causing both boys to turn their heads towards him in surprise. He was no longer standing frozen at the edge of camp, but was rather crouched down over Mina, apparently finishing up preparing the girl for rest. "I guess we should break down and tell them tonight, then, eh?"

Rin shifted uncomfortably, unused to being taken by surprise. There was only one other person in his entire life that Rin had met whose mind was impossible for him to enter unless they were touching and that person had been Kentaar. It made him a little nervous to be around Naruto. Actually, it made him a lot nervous, especially considering his few brief looks into Kentaar's mind had been less than pleasant. "I guess. Tonight…"

"Come on, don't look like that." Naruto said, small laugh on his lips. "No matter what, we won't throw you out to fend for yourself. Not while you're injured!"

Ganten glanced at Rin, his face a blank mask, but his head was moving a mile a minute. _His injuries…? But he's almost healed. He's hidden it pretty well from Tenmar and Uzu, but I'm sure Father's aware…_

Rin glanced at Ganten as the boy stomped towards the fire, making a pretense at working on it. The white haired boy's mind was filled with concern about what would happen to Rin after the family talk tonight. The boy's thoughts gave some comfort to Rin, it was nice to have someone worried about you every once in a while.

The arrival of Tenmar and Uzu to camp caused Rin's thoughts to shift quickly and he stared in a frightened manner at Naruto as the blonde man happily prepared large quantities of instant ramen. It was only moments away, the moment his secret would be revealed. Although he couldn't read Naruto's mind, Rin had a sinking feeling that after exposing his secret he would then be asked to share his story. He dreaded more than anything talking about his time working for Kentaar, a man that these people held so much hate for.

"Yay!" Uzu pounced down near the fire, foxish grin on his face, holding his chopsticks like shovel as he inhaled mouthful after mouthful of ramen. "Daddy, you make the best instant ramen ever!"

"Don't I? Don't I?" Naruto replied, an identical grin appearing on his own face as he followed his son's suit. "Instant ramen cooked over an outdoor fire is the best."

_Lumpy, hard spots won't go away…_ Tenmar thought sadly as he attacked his own ramen halfheartedly. Rin knew from his mind that Tenmar hadn't had much of an appetite since he left his beloved, a man by the name of Iruka-sensei, behind in Konoha. Apparently it was a one sided love which left Tenmar even more miserable when he thought about it.

Uzu also lamented the absence of a boy that had managed to catch his interest. A boy. And Rin knew from everyone else's mind that Naruto was pinning after a boy as well. Not just a boy, but someone younger than his YOUNGEST child, that meant at least that Naruto was more than old enough to be the boy's father. Ganten was the only one that seemed oblivious to the whole love idea, a fact that relieved and bothered Rin at the same time. He understood what Ganten's brothers thought about the two of them, but was confused when it came to his own mind. Ganten, of course, was probably the most strait forward of the Uzumaki boys, if he made up his mind that he was in love with Rin than Rin could only guess what his actions would involve in order to acquire his affections.

When the eating and joking dimmed down Naruto stood, handing Moab, whom he had been feeding, to Ganten. Ganten was the one that complained the least about the baby and as a result whenever he was not taking care of Rin he was often forced to take care of the child. "OK, I know you guys have had things weighing on your mind since we set out. Since we set camp so early I figured tonight was as good a night as any to get some of it out and on the table." Naruto glanced at Rin, eyes asking for permission to start with his issues.

Rin glanced around, eyes wide as every eye in the camp turned to him. He could hear the same old questions begin to surface in Tenmar and Uzu's minds and after a moment he squinted his eyes closed, trying to force his mind to focus on the local wildlife minds, the squirrels, the owl nearby, the pack of wolves that naturally began following them as soon as they came within a certain distance of Moab, the pack of fox that did the same for Naruto. "…I…"

"I'll start." Tenmar stepped in. _Poor guy looks like he thinks we're gonna pounce on him_.

Rin sagged in relief. Thank the gods for Tenmar's kind streak.

"I want to know strait out, Father, do you plan on returning to Konoha once you've found your brothers?" Tenmar's words caused all eyes to shift back to Naruto.

The patriarch sighed, crossing his arms. "I think, at least, that it will take us a while to find them, and then there's Mina's health to worry about… I estimate that it'll be at least until the given time of five years until I'll be ready to even think about returning. Whether or not I actually do go back and if I take any of you with me will be decided then, don't ya think?" Naruto looked down, as if in deep concentration. "Of course, if you're already lonely without Iruka than maybe we'll have to come up with something…"

Rin thought he could see a dark smile lighting Naruto's lips and then the man disappeared in a puff of smoke. The smoke cleared to reveal not Naruto but a blushing Iruka with Naruto style scars across his cheeks.

When Naruto coyed out, "Oh, Tenmar…" Uzu fell off the rock he was sitting on, holding his sides in laughter.

Faster than anyone would have believed possible Tenmar's arm snaked out, smacking his practical-joke making father across the head and causing the blonde to shift back to his original form. "Die!" Tenmar hollered as he once again smacked his father for good measure.

"Heh hehe." Naruto's grin was from ear to ear as he accepted his son's good natured beating. "Sorry, sorry. It was just a joke."

Tenmar backed away, realizing suddenly that it was not Uzu, but his father that he was whacking in frustration. Sometimes it was easy to forget that his father was his father. Not that he was prepared to apologize. What Naruto had done was simply cruel… Especially considering Tenmar's current state of loneliness and the unrequited love situation he found himself in.

"Ahem…" Naruto cleared his throat, making a mental note to make a proper apology later. "Anyone else?"

"Yeah." Uzu replied, leaning forward, for once a serious look across his face. "Why don't you explain where exactly we're traveling?"

Naruto looked at his middle son in surprise; that was a good, serious question. He'd been expecting it from Tenmar or Ganten. "We're heading East. I have reason to believe that if we travel strait East, across the ocean we'll hit an unknown continent. Once there, continuing East, we cross and forest, some mountains and a desert and we'll find your Uncle Tagen."

"And… you think this will happen why?" Ganten interrupted, eyebrow rising quizzically.

Naruto grinned at his youngest son. "Somehow Tagen managed to connect Sasuke to us and sent him a dream while he was passed out." He leaned back as he watched looks of uncertainty cross his children's face. "Look, I know it's a long shot, but it's the only lead we have. I firmly believe that Tagen is the only person that can help Mina, so even if it's unlikely I'm gonna follow it; it is the only lead we have after all."

"Why would he send the dream to Sasuke, why not directly to one of us?" Tenmar asked.

"Because," Ganten replied, eyes' gleaming like a long-thought about puzzle was finally falling into place, "Because we've barred our dreams to avoid Kentaar, and Daddy was sealed, so he couldn't find him. He could have contacted Mina, but she would have ignored any such dream because Kentaar was controlling her… It's not that they deserted us, it's that they couldn't find us!"

Naruto blushed proudly as his youngest son referred to him as 'daddy.' Up until now Uzu was the only one that refereed to him so intimately. He knew that the chances of the ever serious Tenmar calling him Daddy were slim, so it was nice to have his youngest say it. "Ganten's right. I'm not sure how he found Sasuke, but the most convincing piece of evidence for believing that it was a true message from Tagen is the healing of Sasuke's wounds, don't you think?"

Rin smiled as the minds of each of Naruto's son's suddenly was lit with excited thoughts of finding their long-lost uncles Tagen and Aki. Ganten seemed especially excited, like he was finding out that he wasn't really deserted as a child for the first time. After a moment his eyes contacted with Naruto's and he nodded. "I have a question." The camp fell silent as all heads turned to stare at Rin. "I want to know… How long," Rin closed his eyes, trying desperately to focus his mind on the forest rather than listening to the minds of those he was surrounded by currently. "How long am I going to be able to stay?"

Naruto looked at Tenmar and Uzu after Rin finished asking his question. "There are a few things you need to know about Rin before we can make the decision as a family on how long we will give him to recuperate and remain with us."

"Of course we're not gonna throw him into the wild before he's able to defend himself!" Tenmar interjected, indignantly. "We've take care of him up until this point, we couldn't just leave him, it doesn't matter what he's done at this point."

"I want to know what it is that we don't know about him before I make that judgment." Uzu growled in reply, eyes darkening as he glared at Rin. "Don't forget he is one of Kentaar's lackeys. You may be able to forgive and forget, but I…"

Rin looked down as unthinkingly he read the hate filled thoughts of Kentaar pouring through Uzu's mind. This was not going to be an easy road, it would have been made easier if he was willing to use his powers to manipulate his words to appease everyone, but the thought of hearing their hate was too much. Not from these people that he'd grown to care about over the last few days.

Naruto nodded at his youngest son. "I agree. We all deserve to know what exactly the circumstances were to your discipleship of Kentaar."

Rin sighed, once again attempting to focus his mind on the forest outside the camp. "It all started about twelve years ago, when I was a child."

OK, well, that's the end of the first chapter of the Embrace of Solitude sequel, and there was no Sasuke/Shikamaru action… (Not that there's going to be any ACTION action, just appearances… get your minds out of the gutter). Don't worry; next chapter should have a decent start of their adventure and the telling of poor Rin's story, which this whole chapter was leading to and never quite reached…

You may have noticed that I have changed my format from what it was before, ie, the Psychic King talk time has been cut out. Well, to be honest, I decided it was slowing my chapters down, so for now, I've ridded myself of it. It may come back if I get complaints. Another major change that will be implemented at least NEXT chapter is this; any questions I get in the form of a review will be responded to at the end of the next chapter. Of course this is only good in two circumstances, the first is that I actually GET questions reviewed to me and the second is that the list of questions is not overly long and therefore annoying to people that just want to read through the story. If the latter happens than I will make a point out of either only replying to questions that I feel are relevant OR e-mailing replies to people that provide me with their e-mail address. Anyway, Please review and if you have ay questions or comments, please either leave them in your review or e-mail them to me.


	2. Rin's Story

Well, I've got another chapter up for you! My goal is to finish one chapter a week, but this week as been a little hectic. My job is preparing to go to an expo and we've been running around like headless chickens… Good thing I'm ahead a chapter or so, eh?

This chapter comes out with a special thanks to Ghostninja85 for her hard work and efforts editing my work. THANK YOU! That said, enjoy the chapter…

Exodus

Chapter 2

"It all started about twelve years ago, when I was a small child." Rin started, looking towards the ground. He noticed around the camp the countenance of everyone change from the excited air of a few moments ago to a serious, almost oppressive air, at least that's what it felt like. "My family name is Dokushin. Dokushin Rin is my full name." In most circles of upper level ninja the name itself would cause a commotion, but the blank looks on the faces of the Uzumaki family left Rin feeling a little cheated. He would be forced to explain himself fully. "I am the last of my kind. Before I was born we were a prospering clan in the sand village, well sought out for missions of all levels because of our 'unique' ability."

"And what ability would that be?" Uzu broke in; his tone was less than sympathetic.

Rin sighed, looking down. The next words out of his mouth were bound to automatically make Tenmar and Uzu wary of him. "Mind reading. The Dokushin are mind readers."

"Mind readers?" Tenmar repeated, face registering shock. A light blush spread across his face as he recounted all the things he'd been thinking about the last few days. Angry thoughts about Konoha and even his family on occasion, sad thoughts about leaving, about his mother, even a few racy thoughts about… Tenmar's blush deepened. _What must he think about our family?_

Rin suppressed a smile as the thought wafted towards his mind. Although he was focusing his power on the forest a thought directed towards him was almost impossible for him to avoid catching. Tenmar, of all people, was one of the purest minds he had ever met and the horror he was feeling at his 'petty' thoughts was very charming. The happiness lasted only a moment as he remembered what he was in the middle of doing. "We lived and prospered in the Sand Village because we were their irreplaceable 'trump card,' that's what we believed. We knew that the villagers didn't like having us around; humans rarely enjoy having their most private thoughts known, even if they were never revealed. As a result we kept to ourselves, avoiding contact with the others. That was probably what ultimately led to our downfall."

"I can imagine." Naruto piped in. "It's bad enough having your private thoughts read by another person, even worse when it's a person that keeps a distance from you."

Rin nodded. "I actually don't blame the people of the sand village for fearing us, but what that hate led to was inexcusable. Somehow, unbeknownst to even the most powerful of my clan, the Kazekage managed to create a new trump card, a child with monstrous strength. We were no longer needed and, again somehow without our realization, we were targeted." Rin leaned back with a sigh. Suddenly it was not hard to loose himself to his own memories, memories that he hadn't thought about in years. "I honestly don't remember much about that night, I was only two or three at the time, but it was a massacre without my people expecting the attack. Somehow we were unable to read the minds of our attackers and they swept through us like a tide of death. My father and mother managed to escape with my brother and myself. We weren't the head family; we weren't even a powerful family, and it seemed that no one realized our absence."

There was a heavy silence as Rin composed his thoughts before continuing. Even Uzu at this point was feeling a certain amount of pity towards the broken boy. "We spent the next four years in hiding, traveling from small village to small village, never revealing the power that we were hiding. My older brother and I were raised to believe that we were shameful, that our very existence was something disgusting; what other choice did we have when we were forced to hide our true nature?"

Naruto nodded sympathetically. He was no stranger to being treated like an outcast.

"One day a child in the town we were staying disappeared. My parents were good people and couldn't ignore the pain of her parents so they combined their powers to find the girl, leaving our family exposed. The girl was returned to her family unharmed and the villagers seemed not to mind our existence at first, but slowly their minds turned against us. The night my parents were preparing us to flee they arrived, led by the father of the girl my parents saved. We knew they were coming but we just couldn't get ready in time. My parents weren't fighters and so, when the town's people came they distracted them allowing my brother and I to escape. My brother and I hid in the forest and waited for our parents to come, but instead the town's people came. Their minds were still high from killing my parents and it was… it was too much for me to bear." With a shuddering sigh Rin continued. "I dashed from my hiding place, I don't know what I was thinking of doing, what I thought I could do against these men who were intent on killing all of us. If it hadn't been for my brother, pushing me out of the way, I would have been hit by their arrows; instead they got him. Despite that he managed to pick me up and run with me until we were out of sight. We hid again and my brother told me to be a good boy and remain hidden this time until they passed. After that his mind stopped." Rin once again paused, having trouble continuing with the story, it was something he didn't think about often, it still hurt when he thought about his parents or his brother.

"His mind stopped?" Uzu repeated in a tone that implied that he was now more than a little into the story.

"He died." Ganten replied, thinking, _IDIOT, can't you see he's in pain? Are you alright, Rin?_

The pain subsided slightly as Rin realized that not only Ganten but also Tenmar and even Uzu were concerned over his well being. Glancing up he could see a worried look on Naruto's face as well. "Sorry. I'm fine. After my brother died I hid for two nights, not daring to move because I could still hear the minds of the town's people searching. Near the end of the second night, just when they were about to give up they found me, still clinging to my brother's corpse. I still don't understand why it was so important that they kill all of us. Wasn't it enough that we left? Did they need to kill us, too?" Rin's questioning eyes fell upon the Uzumaki family, who offered no answers. "It was then I decided that they couldn't be allowed to live. If it was them or me, I was going to watch out for myself and take them out before they could do the same to me."

"How did you manage that?" Uzu prompted again when Rin fell silent. Despite his intentions he found himself completely involved in Rin's story. "How did you survive?"

A humorless smile flashed across Rin's face. "That's when I was saved… That's when Kentaar found me."

At that point the camp seemed to explode. Uzu jumped to his feet shouting something about how evil can't save you from evil, at the same time a low wail began from the direction of Mina, intensifying with every second and, if it weren't enough, the commotion caused Moab to scream, his tiny fists rubbing ferociously at his face. Naruto jumped up and ran to Mina's side, followed closely by Uzu, who seemed to be mentally blaming himself for the distress his sister was in. Ganten, who was already holding Moab, took to trying to soothe the baby. Rin grimaced as he felt the wolves move closer to the camp as the heard the screams of their master, Moab. The movement of the wolves caused the nearby fox to also move closer, fearing a threat to their master, Naruto.

Luckily, as soon as Mina calmed down Moab also fell silent, causing the tension in the forest to calm a bit. Rin wondered momentarily if Naruto was even aware of the foxes that followed him, apparently since they left Konoha.

"Sorry," Uzu said in a tone that implied no actual remorse. "Continue."

Rin glanced at the nodding heads around the campfire and prepared himself to begin the most challenging part of the story. "Just as they were about to kill me Kentaar arrived. I don't know what he was doing there, I don't know why he decided to stop and see what the villagers were doing, but he did. He walked strait through their group killing whoever tried to get in the way and looked down at me. I remember him asking, 'Do you want to die today, boy?' I shook my head and that was it. He grabbed me and walked into the forest, leaving the villagers speechless and frightened. After that he promised me the power for revenge if I served him. I agreed and began a new life. After only a year of training I returned to village, alone. I left not a person standing, not the women, not the children… Then I burned their houses. I thought that revenge would make me feel better, but…" Rin fell silent once again, shaking his head.

"That village, was it called South Gate?" Naruto asked, eyes widening.

Rin nodded.

"I remember that story!" Naruto said, springing to his feet. "They couldn't figure out what happened, it was like the village itself disappeared. No one could find trace of a killer and not a person survived to tell their story. They were blaming it on a demon. Actually, if it hadn't been so far away, they probably would have used it as an excuse to try an' string me up for it."

Rin lifted a hand slowly and pointed to his head. It was the first time he used his limbs since they had been broken. At this point he didn't care that he was tipping them off that he was almost done healing, he feared more their recourse if they discovered he was healed on their own. Right now honesty was the most important, if he hid nothing and laid everything out on the table there would be no surprises later, assuming there WAS a later for them. "My powers allowed me to stop even a pet from escaping my wrath, but like I said, it didn't ease the pain of my parent's death. I returned to Kentaar feeling empty. He insisted that it was simply that I didn't think on a big enough scale, he told me, 'You're not human, so you hate humans. You'll feel better if you destroy them all.' And for a while I did, I killed every human I met with no prejudice. Up until recently I didn't even know there was such a thing a truly kind human, all I knew what that I wasn't human, that Kentaar and his men weren't human and that in this world it was kill or be killed."

Uzu shifted uncomfortably. Rin's story was hitting close to home on certain points. If his life had gone differently, he wondered if he would have ended up like this boy. "Meeting Ganten changed that?"

Rin shook his head, a small smile appearing on his face. "No. We had a mission, Inuko one other and I, to attack a small village and search for information leading us to… I guess to you, Naruto. Something went wrong during the course of the mission and I was injured. Inuko and the other nin left me behind when I began slowing them down, an action I was expecting. It's not like we cared for each other or felt any particular loyalty; we were together because we had the same goals and served the same master. I lay there injured, dying, but hidden, with only my pack to take care of me."

"Your pack?" Tenmar asked, "What do you mean?"

"I was placed in charge of a small group of wolves for purposes of missions. My powers made me very valuable as a pack leader because I could gather information from them with no problems and could even send them information in their dreams. I'm sure you're aware that wolves have power to travel dreams."

The Uzumaki family nodded. They had experienced that with Kentaar their whole lives until they found ways to block the man from their minds. They hadn't realized that the power was available to all wolves, but then, it made sense.

Rin continued, "So, like I said, I was dying and this woman found me surrounded by wolves and gasping for life, for breath. Her name was Keiko, a hermit of all things, who had been wandering the forest looking for herbs. I remember looking up at her as she stared at me in pity and surprise and thinking that I must have died and gone to the after life. Then I passed out. I don't remember much of the beginning but she nursed me back to life for no reason other than I needed help. I talked in my sleep, in my fevered dreams, and she learned of my secret. Despite that she didn't hate me or condemn me. When I healed fully I left her side and never returned, but after that I found myself wondering more and more about humans. Occasionally I would slip away from Kentaar to go to a town and just observe and I realized that mixed in with the evil there was a kindness and slowly but surely I found myself working so that as few people as possible would have to die when I went out on mission. Kentaar's people noticed the change, and I'm sure Kentaar himself noticed, but no one said anything. I was, after all, still doing what I was told."

"You said you were sure Kentaar noticed, but you say that like you really didn't know for certain." Ganten said when Rin stopped talking. He left the actual question unspoken, although it was running through his mind.

Rin nodded, "That's true. To be honest, that's because I couldn't read Kentaar's mind. Not unless I touched him and, trust me, I touched him as infrequently as I could. He was completely insane." Looking at Naruto he added. "I also can't enter your mind."

"You bastard!" Uzu broke out in an almost mocking way, pointing an accusing finger at Rin. He then looked down sheepishly, glad that his outburst hadn't caused any trouble with Mina or Moab. "THAT'S why you've been shying away from Daddy's touch, you're scared of him!"

Rin looked down slightly guiltily and nodded. "Honestly, Naruto, I don't mean to be scared of you, but not knowing what you're thinking…" A mirthless laugh choked out of his throat as he looked down in shame. "I'm just as bad as the people that killed my family, being scared of someone just because I don't understand them."

Naruto stood and moved to stand over the boy with a smile on his face. "Don't let it bother you, I'm used to having people be scared of me, I am a monster after all. But if you want…" Naruto lowered his hand holding it just barely above the boy's own in an offering gesture. "If you never try it, you'll always be scared."

Rin glanced at the anticipating faces of those surrounding him. In all honesty, he really didn't want to touch the man, especially not with Ganten and his brother's watching. What really scared Rin, however, was the fact that he might be sent away from them if he didn't. Somehow Ganten and his family had become important enough that Rin wasn't sure what he would do if he were sent away. With a grimace he reached his hand out slowly and allowed it to brush against Naruto's.

_Can you hear me, kid?_Naruto's mind was singing good-naturedly.

"Yes, I can hear you." Rin replied with a slight smile. Naruto's mind was as open as his actions, and from what Rin could tell, he was sane, if not a little strange.

_So, am I crazy? I've always wondered. Sasuke, Illia and everybody beside the kiddies always treat me like I'm a little off, you know/_/ Naruto thought. With each thought memories, pictures and feelings arose, as they did with every mind, but with Naruto there was a much longer span of experiences that were thought of.

"Well, I wouldn't say crazy, per say, but…" Rin grinned, a feeling of relief washing over him. Naruto was not like Kentaar, all bitterness and anger, but instead just as open and honest as he acted on the outside.

"Oi!" Naruto replied, snatching his hand back from the boy. "What kind of thing is that to say to one of the men that are taking care of you?"

"Well you DID ask…" Rin replied, full smile forming on his face. Looking up he could see Naruto's children exchanging bemused smiles. "So, about my earlier question… Can I stay?"

The Uzumaki men looked at each other, each of their minds moving quickly over Rin's story once more as they contemplated his request. Naruto sighed, taking the lead, "We're gonna have to talk it over. I would go to the side so we can talk quietly amongst ourselves, but it's not like you won't know what we're saying." He glanced at his sons. "So what are we gonna do, guys?"

Ganten shrugged. "You know my opinion." He looked pointedly at Uzu and Tenmar.

Tenmar also looked at Uzu. _I don't mind him staying but if it'll anger Uzu I don't see how we could keep him around…_

Uzu seemed to be struggling with the problem the most. _He worked for Kentaar… But I don't know if I'd of done any differently if it'd been my life. Anyway, he's probably like Ganten's LAST chance at love. No girl's gonna fall for something THAT homely._ "Alright. I guess I'm on board, too. But I wanna know up front. That girl, Kei-somethin' or other, what was your relationship? You're no gonna break my little brother's heart, are you?"

Naruto's head snapped towards the brown haired boy. "I FORBID IT! If you break my son's heart I'll hunt you to the ends of the earth!"

"Uz- Da-" Ganten sputtered for a moment before finally throwing his hands in the air in disgust. This would have been fine if it weren't for Moab. The baby shrieked in delight as he flew gently through the air.

"Moab!" Uzu jumped into the air and snatched the baby into his arms. "Geeze Ganten, you gotta be careful when you're holding a-" He looked up to see his brothers and father laughing at him as he realized what he had just done. With a grimace he thrust the baby back into Ganten's arms, exclaiming, "Oh MAN! I coulda been rid of the brat and here's me acting all heroic. Shit!" Still grumbling Uzu stomped away to sulk at the far end of the fire.

"I guess what Uzu's trying to say is welcome to the family. And if you break Ganten's heart you better watch your back." Tenmar said, managing to hold a both threatening and sweet smile across his face.

"Tenmar, you too?" Ganten demanded in an annoyed tone, this time settling for thrusting the baby towards his eldest brother rather than throwing it.

"What?" Tenmar asked innocently. _Was he trying to hide his relationship with Rin? But why'd he hand me Moab?_

"I think it's time to start rehabilitation training on Rin's legs and arms." Ganten explained, storming away from his family before they could continue to make embarrassing innuendos about his relationship with Rin. Ganten moved next to his friend and reached a hand down. _Well, let's get you on your feet for starters, then we can do some arm exercises while you stand or lean against something. That way you'll be at least starting to get used to your leg muscles again._

Rin nodded, accepting the outstretched hand and stood for the first time in what seemed like forever, although Ganten wasn't far from his side, just in case. He could hear Ganten's mind thinking about what exercises to do, but in the background there was something else entirely going on. Rin suppressed a laugh when he realized that the white haired boy was thinking about the woman, Keiko, from his story. Maybe his family really DID have reason to tease Ganten.

"Alright, you can lean against me if you need support, got it?" _I wonder what she looked like._ "Now stretch out your right hand and practice moving it up as far as you can…" _Was he really in love with her?_ "OK, hold it, Rin, that's good. Again"

Rin's eyes widened as the white haired boy's mind mused about what his feelings had been fore Keiko. The impulse to fall into Ganten's arms crossed Rin's mind and before he could stop himself he found his body collapsing into the white haired boy. "Sorry."

Ganten shook his head, grabbing Rin's shoulder to offer the boy support. "It's fine. Do you think you can lean like this or do you want to sit down again?"

"I think I can stand like this for a while… By the way, Ganten, I didn't."

_did he hear me think about… Shit._ "What are you talking about, Rin?" Ganten demanded, deciding to play it safe.

Rin looked up, trying to look as innocent as possible. "I didn't love Keiko. That was what you were wondering, right?"

For a brief moment Ganten felt a flash of inexplicable relief, and then his eyes narrowed. With a certain amount of satisfaction Ganten released his hold on the brown haired boy, sending him sprawling to the ground. "And don't say you didn't deserve it." Ganten added, dusting his hands as he stormed away to sit next to the still muttering Uzu.

Tenmar exchanged glances with his father, "They're so cute together, don't you think?"

Sasuke sighed as he spared one last glance at his home for what he feared would be the last time in a long while. The last few days he'd been thinking and he decided that he just couldn't leave that idiot Naruto alone. Anyway, even though he'd neglected to ask Sasuke along he hadn't exactly forbid Sasuke from following, either. The most important thing was, Sasuke knew which direction they were heading, catching up would only be a matter of time.

Hefting his pack over his shoulder Sasuke crept slowly towards the wall surrounding the only town he'd ever known as home. He should be able to get out of the city without much problem considering the disarray Konoha was still currently in. The problem lay in getting back in if he were to change his mind. That's why it had taken him two days to decide whether or not he was actually going to do this.

With an unwavering hand Sasuke gripped the handles he knew existed on the side of the wall, climbing swiftly. There was no room left for hesitation in his mind. He was going to be with Naruto and get strong enough to defeat Itachi. He could have both; he WOULD have both or revenge was not worth having.

As quickly as Sasuke ascended the wall he descended it and made a quick dash towards the forest only a few feet away. He was amazed that things were going so smoothly. He'd half expected Sakura or Iruka-sensei to appear and bar his exit. Once in the forest Sasuke was as good as gone. There were not many that could track him in the dark after that point and by the time they noticed he was gone there would be no trace.

"Going somewhere?" A low lazy sounding voice called from behind him causing Sasuke to jump into the air in surprise.

With a low growl Sasuke turned to find himself face to face with Shikamaru. "What the hell're you doing here?" Sasuke demanded.

"Perhaps I should be the one asking that. I didn't think it would take you two days to decide to join him." Shikamaru sigh, leaning against a nearby tree as he spoke. Standing with his own strength was such a bother.

"If you know what I'm doing than what do you want?" Sasuke spat back, preparing himself to fight for the right to leave. "If you plan on stopping me…"

Shikamaru groaned, holding up a hand before Sasuke could continue. In the hand was a pack. "It would be bothersome to let you run off on your own." The boy said simply. "I'm going too."

Sasuke stared Shikamaru, considering his options. He could just say no. Of course, Shikamaru could just run back into town and tell everyone that Sasuke was leaving before he got a decent distance away. Anyway, despite his lazy nature, Shikamaru was supposedly a pretty good fighter. He was at least a genin, he wouldn't be a handicap. Sasuke sighed. The longer he thought about it the less reason he could think of NOT to take the spiky haired boy. "Fine, let's just get going."

Shikamaru nodded, strapping his pack across his back and moving to follow Sasuke. He hadn't expected the stoic boy to agree so easily. He must be really desperate to join Naruto.

Ahem… Well, there's the Sasuke/Shikamaru action I promised. Next chapter should get a little more fighting action as I finally have the long explanation stuff out of the way. I don't think that Sasuke and Shika-chan will catch up for a while, but one day, I'm sure…

As promised, I'll answer any questions that were sent to me… Ahem…

Anime Redneck asks: I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess that since the fist chapter to the sequel of 'Embrace of Solitude' has been put out that you have a Beta Reader for it, yes? Then why, please, are there missing and misspelled words still?

My reply: sputter Wha- hey- Spe- I mean, eh? Spelling mistakes? ME? Never. You must speak a different dialect of English, 'cause I would NEVER- er, OK, never mind, in actuality, yes, I DO have a pre-reader/beta NOW, but I jumped the gun with chapter one and released it before it was edited… I'm terribly sorry about any errors that appear, but if it helps any, I DID run the chapter through extensive spell check and re-read it a few times; I'm just not good at catching my own mistakes. I promise to work harder in the future… bows to readers I'm sorry! Also, my author's notes are usually written up right before I post the chapter, so they have the biggest chances of spelling problems, as they always remain un-edited beyond spell check.

RukaIayLomperGay asks: So is Tenmar ever going to get with Iruka?...even for a night...pweese!

My reply: Ah… I love how you root for Tenmar, but as Iruka stayed in Konoha and Tenmar's off to adventure I don't know how possible that is. Don't worry; I have PLANS for Tenmar… Oh yes, great plans… cue lightning and evil laughter

Tenmar: frightened Gah, what do you mean by THAT?

Psychic King: Heh heh heh… You'll just have'ta wait an' see…

Tenmar: whimpers

Koolanimefreek asks: what i dont understand is if sasuke and shika are going after them... are they traveling together? and will they actually be able to reach the uzumakis?

My reply: Ano, I hope that this chapter answered SOME of those questions… I DO have possible plans for meetings and such, but THAT will have to wait to be seen (I don't really MIND throwing spoilers, but I'm always afraid that I'll change my mind before I get to that point, so I'm scared to…).

And now an Inspirational Quote for you all: Every flower must grow through dirt. –Anonymous

And with that I'm out of things to say except please review. Oh, and, I had a few people mention that they would beta if I wanted. I do have a beat, but I was hoping to have two, not that one isn't enough, but I'd like two opinions on my story content. Unfortunately, I would e-mail these people, but darnit, doesn't let me look up people's e-mail addresses. It's not letting me post MY e-mail address, either, so we've got a small problem. Well, I'll spell it out, so if you still are interested send me an e-mail please to psychicking at gmail dot com.

The at and the dot should be symbols… Ehe we'll see if that works. Anyway, have a good day, thanks for reading and thank you everyone that posted a review!


	3. Quick Detour Part I

Well, I've been watching Naruto, and once again I'm struck my how little I like Sasuke sometimes… Rock Lee, now THAT'S a great man… I wonder if it's too late to get rid of Sasuke in this story and replace him with Lee… (before anyone kills me, I'm only joking…) Enjoy the chapter!

:BREAK:

Exodus

Chapter 3

"Whew!" Uzu grinned as he poured a bottle of water over his head. He then proceeded to shake his head wildly, spraying his family with small drops of water and earning himself several dirty looks. "We're really making good time!"

A matching smile spread across Naruto's face as the blonde man jumped to his feet. "Of course! If we continue at this speed we'll reach the ocean in no time at all!"

Tenmar shook his head as he wiped some offending water droplets off his face. It was true, they were making good time the last couple days; as slow as the first two days had been these last couple were fast. A normal human group of this size couldn't have made it, but because of both Rin's ability and his father's natural forest aptitude they managed to avoid complete contact with both people and animals. If Ganten's calculations were correct (and they always were) they would reach the bay with only one more day of travel. After that they would be forced to island hop for a while and then, the Great Sea.

"What has me concerned," Ganten said, picking up a stick and then clearing a space on the ground, "is this." He took a moment to draw a crude map of the area. "There should be no ninja villages between us and the sea, so I foresee only a small chance of conflict, but once we reach the bay area, here, how are we going to get to the next island? The nearest bay-side village is far enough away to be a problem, at least a half a day out of the way." He looked up to stare at his father, "Do you have a plan on dealing with it?"

Naruto scratched his cheek; his sons could almost see the wheels turning in his head. "Nope, haven't really thought about it."

"Haven't thought about it? Father, I thought you had this all figured out!" Tenmar cried, in an I-knew-I-shouldn't-have-left-all-the-planning-up-to-someone-else type of voice.

Naruto shook his head, looking at his sons. "I thought we could swim it."

"That's a good idea for the four of us, but what about Mina and Rin? Not to mention Moab." Ganten interjected softly, trying hard to keep his tone respectful. As much as it felt like it, this wasn't one of Uzu's harebrained ideas, it was his father's.

Naruto grinned, trotting a bit away from camp and pulling off his clothes. Quicker than the eyes could follow he began his transformation until, standing where the tall blonde had been was instead a gigantic furry leg attached to an equally gigantic torso. With a rush of air, Fox-demon-style Naruto lowered his head, tongue lolling out. A booming voice that sounded like a mixture between a growl and Naruto's laugh roared out, "They can ride on me, don'tcha think?"

"We could ALL ride on you." Uzu yelled, eyes dancing.

"What?" Naruto replied, already shrinking back down to his human form.

"Father, please, your pants!" Tenmar interjected, blushing slightly as a naked Naruto rejoined them around Ganten's ground map.

Rin eyed the blonde for a moment as he pulled his pants on, grinning all the while. It wasn't a bad view-

_WHERE are you looking, bastard? That's my FATHER_!

Rin's eyes bolted towards Ganten as the white haired boy hollered mentally at him. It was amazing how Ganten managed to hold a perfectly calm face while envisioning exactly what he'd do to Rin if he looked at his father like that again. Rin grinned sheepishly at the boy, even if Ganten lacked mind reading abilities his natural perception was far too sharp sometimes. "Sorry. So you're proposing that we ride you all the way across the bay?"

_What's he apologizing for_?Tenmar thought as he shrugged. "Why not?"

"Well there is the problem of how to keep Mina, Moab and Rin from falling off. Rin may have use of his arms, but he'd have a hard time holding on as he's not healed yet." Ganten replied. "And then there's the problem of Rin's abilities. If he's on Father's back than he'll be in Father's mind the whole time. That may be… hard for Rin, considering the slightly more animalistic thought process that occurs when transformed."

"We can hold onto them as we go across and…" Uzu sighed, looking to the sky, "Uh, wrap Rin in a blanket so he doesn't have to touch Daddy."

Tenmar looked up, "Or we could build a make shift raft and have Father pull us across the bay."

Ganten shot his brothers a skeptical look. "Do you know how large the bay is? It's almost as far across as the distance we've walked so far. It is scattered with islands that are either heavily populated or uninhabitable, which means no stop-overs. If the islanders SEE Father while he's in his giant fox form, or if a boat sees him, we may end up being attacked."

Naruto sighed, shoulders slumping as his son explained the situation. "I'm not good with this 'planning ahead' crap." After a moment he gave out another long-suffering sigh. "Alright, what do you think we should do, Ganten?"

"Well, the Hokage left you with some funds to aid our travels, correct?" Without pausing for an answer Ganten plowed onward. "My estimate is that the amount should be enough for boat costs across the bay, and then again for boat fees across the ocean, once we reach it, with enough left over to buy provisions to cross the desert on the new continent. The only problem with that is, as mentioned before, the nearest bay-side village where we can find a boat to ferry us across the bay is half a day's travel away, and we can't easily go waltzing into the town with Mina the way she is."

"Hum…" Naruto looked down at Ganten's map thoughtfully. "Well, we could go AROUND the bay, right?"

"That would add about a week onto our trip." Ganten replied, wondering what his father was getting at.

"Not if you all ride on me. I know it would be hard to hold onto Mina, Moab and Rin, but if it's for short, say eight to ten hour increments at a time, it should be OK and get us to the other side with only about a day lost, if this map is right."

"It's Ganten; the map is right." Uzu ruffled his younger brother's hair affectionately.

"He's right." Tenmar added, slight note of pride in his voice. _Ganten's amazing…_With a look of unveiled admiration he asked Ganten, "How do you know this area so well? We always lived in the opposite direction of Konoha."

"After the battle with Kentaar I knew that our leaving was the most probable outcome, either forced or otherwise. I also knew that Father would be eager to find his brothers once he left Konoha, so I made it a point to use the maps in Sasuke's house to research the area. I know every major city between here and the great sea." Picking up his stick once more, Ganten went back to his map. "This stretch of land on the other side of the bay, here, is pretty thin. It'll be half a days travel max once we get here until we reach the sea, then we just have to find an ocean bearing boat. My understanding is that, although little is known of the other continents, there are ships that travel to their borders. My theory for the reason for this is that the ninja are the ones keeping the 'Ninja Continent', from lack of a better term, separate from the others in order to keep the countries within this continent safe from outside invasion AND to maintain control over the defense of these countries. Although, periodically-"

"OK, OK we get the picture!" Uzu wrapped his hand around his younger brother's mouth, effectively silencing him. "You can tell us the history of the 'Ninja something or other' when we're trapped on a boat with nowhere to run!" _God, give him a little attention and he goes on and on and on…_

Ganten pushed his brother away. "Fine." _Does EVERYONE think I'm boring_?"Traveling north around the bay is probably the best move, but we'll have to be wary about running into any people while we do it. If we are going to ride on Father than we'll also have to be careful about time, as it is very exhausting, even for you, Daddy, to be in fox form for huge amounts of time multiple days in a row. We can't allow you to be in fox form for more than five days without taking at least a day's rest. On top of that, any ninja within a pretty large radius will be able to sense your power, that's where Rin's ability'll come in handy. If he so much as notices a ninja sneezing in our direction, we'll know to hide. That is assuming, of course, that there are any that will be able to catch up with Father."

Naruto was beaming. Once more, Ganten had slipped up and referred to him as 'Daddy', it was such a happy moment in his life. With a proud smile on his face he wrapped his arms around his youngest son, pulling him into a fierce hug. "You're amazing!"

Ganten blushed, for a moment happily surprised by the sudden hug. The last person to hug him like this had been Mina, and that had been years ago. Maybe it was nice, sometimes. _When did I stop hugging Mina? Maybe she wouldn't have been so sad if we-no, if I had been a little more affectionate. I was the closest to her. When did I push her away?_Ganten allowed the hug to last moments longer before pulling away a little regretfully. It was first time since childhood that his father had held him just because; that he had praised him for being him.

Uzu's mouth curved down in a pout. "Daddy!" Uzu said, crocodile tears forming in his eyes. "Do you love Ganten most?"

Naruto glanced at his middle son and held his arms out. "Do you want a hug, too, Uzu?"

With a sniff, Uzu nodded.

"Alright, come on." Naruto dutifully put his arms around his son. Although the gesture was done in a dutiful way, it was obvious that Naruto was actually enjoying his children's attention. When he was done hugging Uzu he also gave a hug to Tenmar and then, for good measure, to Mina, Moab and even Rin. "My wonderful family."

With a blush Rin realized that he was actually happy about being included. It had been ages, a different life time, since he had felt like part of a family. It was nice. He realized when Naruto gave him the fatherly embrace that Naruto was also thinking about how wonderful it was to finally have an actual family, but in the back of his mind he was also thinking about a certain dark haired boy he left behind.

:BREAK:

Shikamaru glanced at Sasuke from across the fire they had built. They'd been traveling for most of the day in silence and now that they had stopped to rest for the night the silence continued. Shikamaru sighed. It was all completely annoying. Whatever Sasuke's plans for the trip were, they were a mystery to him, all he knew was they were heading East and from the look of it, they were going to at least go all the way to the Bay. He knew that, when Sasuke had so easily agreed to him coming along, there was the possibility that the dark haired boy would attempt to leave him behind during the night. Shikamaru had already prepared some measures to stop that from happening.

Sasuke glanced at Shikamaru as the spiky haired boy sighed again. Was he expecting Sasuke to talk to him? It was enough that he'd allowed the boy to tag along, why should he try to come up with ways to entertain him as well? When he'd agreed to allow Shikamaru to join him it had been more an act of desperation to get farther away from Konoha. If they had stayed in the area and argued the chances of being found and stopped were higher. Now that they had gotten this far together, however, Sasuke was pretty certain that he couldn't loose the other boy. Even if he tried to run while Shikamaru was sleeping, the fact of the matter was, Shikamaru was still a ninja and would have to be stupid if he couldn't come up with a way to stop that from happening. One thing Sasuke had realized since the start of their travels was that Shikamaru was not stupid. Lazy, but not stupid.

Shikamaru sighed again, looking up towards the stars. After a moment he opened his mouth. "You must know that you can't loose me easily at this point, right?"

Sasuke nodded darkly. "I know."

"They why don't you tell me where we're headed exactly? It's annoying not knowing where I'm going." The tone was laid back as typical of Shikamaru, but his countenance had changed slightly. He was sitting up straighter and his eyes held an interested gleam.

Sasuke sighed, looked towards the sky. The trees were swaying slightly with a breeze that didn't reach them at the forest floor; the stars were out in multitude. So were the predators, of course. It would be nice to have someone to split the night watch with, it would mean they could sleep on the forest floor near a fire rather than Sasuke's original plan of sleeping up in the trees with one eye open. "We're heading East, past the bay to the Great Sea-"

"The Great Sea?" Shikamaru repeated, eyes widening. That had gone beyond his expectations.

Sasuke nodded, "The Sea, a forest and then a desert. Naruto has to cross each to find his brothers, who he thinks will be able to help Mina. If we're lucky we can catch up with Naruto and the others before they find a ship that'll take them across the Sea. If not then we'll have to make our own preparations to cross the forest and the desert. I don't know how big they are or how populated the areas surrounding them are, so we may need to prepare months worth of supplies and maybe hire someone once we reach the new continent."

Shikamaru whistled between his teeth. "You're talking about a small fortune worth of cash to get you across the Sea alone, not to mention what it might take to hire a guide and gather supplies."

Sasuke shrugged, pulling a small bag from seemingly nowhere. He tossed it to Shikamaru. "I'm not totally without preparation."

"What?" Shikamaru replied. After a moment he pulled a string on the bag and it fell open. Cash, gold, gems and an assortment of other valuables spilled out and onto the ground. "Damn."

"My family's fortune can be put to some use this way. It's not like I was ever gonna use it."

After a moment of shuffling through the fortune and then stuffing it all gingerly back into the bag Shikamaru sighed. "We could hire an entire army to take us all the way across the continent and back again with that much money… Are you sure you want to spend this? I mean, one day you may want to have a family or-"

"I'm sure." Sasuke replied shortly, crossing his arms and glaring at his companion.

Shikamaru shook his head at Sasuke's obvious attempt at intimidating him, but decided to let the matter drop. Why the dark haired boy was so sensitive about the questions was beyond him. Unless- A sudden smirk found its way across Shikamaru's face as he noticed the slight blush around Sasuke's cheeks. "So, what you're saying is, the only family you have left is the one we're heading towards, right?"

Sasuke's countenance darkened. "I said nothing of the sort." He spat out, jumping to his feet.

_Geeze, don't you know that you're reaction gives you away more than your words?_ Shikamaru thought, but wisely didn't voice those thoughts. Instead he scooted his body further away from Sasuke, holding his hands out in a placating gesture. "OK, OK, sorry. Forget I said anything."

After a moment Sasuke sat, continuing to glare at the world. There was a long silence. In the forest could be heard the sounds of an owl, various insects and small creatures scuttling around the ground. The breeze blew again and this time it reached downwards to the camp, causing the fire stir and sending a quick chill through Sasuke. He glared at the fire for a moment then looked to Shikamaru. "Why'd you follow me?"

"I told you." Shikamaru replied, stretching his arms into the air. "It'd be annoying to let you go alone. Anyway, if I hadn't followed you I would have ended up on a search party looking for you, I'm sure, and that would have been REALLY annoying. And then I'd haffta listen to Ino and Sakura whine about your disappearance…" He sighed, rolling his eyes.

"You think I'm buying that?" Sasuke replied, arching his eyebrows.

Shikamaru slumped his shoulders, glancing towards his companion. "Guess not."

"You're worried about them?"

Shikamaru looked towards the sky, watching the trees sway with the wind. "Yeah…"

:BREAK:

With a sigh Tenmar slipped off his father's transformed back and onto the ground. It was the first day of what was looking to be a three day journey around the bay on Naruto's back and it was a lot more work that Tenmar had anticipated. At first it had been kind of fun, in fact, it reminded Tenmar of his childhood when his father would transform and take himself and Uzu scouting around the forest. After an hour the excitement ran out and the cool breeze started to feel more like a cold blast of wind that was impossible to escape from. On top of that, keeping himself on his father's back was difficult, having to hold onto either Mina or Moab at all times made it even harder, especially when Mina went into one of her fits. Mina's fits were beyond hard to control on the moving surface of Naruto's back and more than once Mina had almost tumbled to the forest floor.

He watched with sympathy as his father turned back into his human form and lay on the ground, panting. It took enormous amounts of Naruto's energy to remain in his giant fox form for more than an hour or so at a time.

"Are you alright Daddy?" Uzu asked, leaning over the blonde while unthinkingly patting Moab's back. Tenmar suspected that, despite Uzu's best intentions, the red head was beginning to grow accustomed to the small baby, perhaps even fond of it.

Naruto nodded, sitting up suddenly. He reached a shaking hand out and grabbed hold of the nearest pack, digging through it until he found a packet of meat jerky of some sort. Apparently without chewing, the blonde choked down five large pieces of the meat before pulling out a blanket and curling into a ball underneath it. The group watched as within moments his breathing evened out and he was fast asleep.

After a moment Ganten spoke up, "He's probably gonna want something fresh when he wakes up."

"IF he wakes up…" Uzu replied, staring at his father in wonder. "I guess I could go do some hunting." He added, thrusting Moab into Tenmar's arms and stretching.

Rin rose shakily to his feet, "There's some roots and stuff over in that direction." He gestured vaguely. "I can hear the rabbits enjoying their dinner. It's not very far; I think I can make it on my own."

"Fine." Ganten replied, already in the midst of clearing an area to prepare a fire. _Rin's going alone? Oh well. He should know his body and its limitations better than I…_

Tenmar was also already immersed in juggling taking care of Moab and Mina and simply nodded at the brown haired boy. _Ugh… This baby stinks. No wonder Uzu jumped on the chance to hunt, bastard._

With a grin Rin focused his mind on the rabbits, feeling a bit guilty that he was going to rob them of the rest of their meal. As he slowly made his way towards the area the creatures were at, he thought about how much his life had changed in the last week. He'd gone from working for an insane man that wanted to subjugate Naruto and kill his children to a barely able to walk on his own cripple that was dependant on those he had been previously attempting to kill… And according to the others he was romantically involved with one on them, too.

Rin knew that Ganten currently had no conscious intention of having a romantic relationship with him- that the white haired boy was only interested in him as a friend and, when healed, a sparing partner. Rin also knew that the other members of the Uzumaiki family were only half joking when they told him not to break Ganten's heart. Rin also knew that if he wasn't romantically involved with Ganten when he fully healed he lost all reason to travel with Naruto and his family. The thought of leaving them left him feeling empty and slightly panicked for more reasons than one. He'd grown fond of them, something he could say about only one other living person in the whole of the world.

The other reason, the reason that gnawed at him in the night and left him lonely and agitated whenever he thought about it was that when he left them he would be completely alone and, even worse, without purpose. Ever since his earliest memory, Rin had had a purpose. As a child it had been surviving, keeping his family's secret. When he worked for Kentaar it had been revenge, after he had achieved that it had been destruction. Now, traveling with Ganten and his family, it was like their purpose, their worries, their drive had seeped into him, and he felt like a part of something. If he left their side, for the first time in his life he would be completely without reason. Where would he go? What would he do?

With a sigh Rin looked up to the sky as a cloud wandered across the moon, blocking it from view. It was a beautiful night. Guiltily, Rin moved towards the rabbits, who were still enjoying their feast. They paused as they noticed him, terror over-taking their being as they wondered whether or not he was a predator. "Sorry, little guys… At least I'm not here to kill you and eat you, that guy's a little farther North. I just want your food…" No sooner had he spoken than the rabbits bolted, dashing towards their burrows in a frenzied panic.

Rin chuckled slightly. "Too bad you don't understand me." He said to the rabbits as they trembled in their burrows. He leaned down slowly, pulling at the carrots and roots as he talked. "If you could, you'd probably just be ignoring me right now, still enjoying your mea-"

The vegetables fell from Rin's hands as a new mind sprang into his mind reading radius. It was followed quickly by another. "Shit." He whispered, eyes widening. Forgetting completely about the carrots, Rin clenched his fists at his head. He couldn't read the first mind's thoughts, but the second mind was clear as a bell to him. They were searching for-

Falling to all fours Rin threw back his head, and screamed. He couldn't make it back to camp in time, but he prayed that his voice would reach them. "GANTEN!"

:BREAK:

Well, I think that went well… Of course, I'm bound to have annoyed some people about leaving off the chapter at such a bad place, but hopefully I'll have the next chapter out before too long, so I don't get you all REALLY annoyed with me. For those of you that were wondering, I based my description of the land around Konoha from a map that you see at the beginning of the Chuunin exams. I THINK I'm accurate; but then, if I'm not, please just pretend I am, as I have situated the whole plot around this idea… Also, something that's NOT in the anime or manga, I decided to make it so that the other continents on this world do not have any connection with the one that the major Naruto plot-line takes place on. Meaning, the area of the world that MOST ninja are aware of is actually only a small portion of the world. There's a whole lot of world out there beyond it that are not necessarily connected with Ninja or at the same technology level as the ninja are… Well, we'll see how that goes… (If I find that I'm ridiculously off in the world description I may have to yank the chapter for some re-write…)

On another note… Today's my BIRTHDAY! YAY! Yes, on March 11th, some undisclosed number of years ago I was born in the little village of Southfield, MI. It was a pleasant day, unseasonably warm and the sun managed to break away from the clouds to let a small ray of light into the hospital room as my head-

Sakura: That's QUITE enough of that. We get the picture, you were born. Big deal.

Psychic-King: You're just bitter that you don't have a part in this story :blows raspberry:

Iruka: Technically, I don't have a part in this story either… :Sniffs:

Psychic King: Oh, no! Iruka, Kakashi, I promise to give you a part in a while, so please, be happy! Here, have some cake. :Turning to readers: Well, it's my birthday, so everybody should have fun and skip school and work for the day. Psychic King-sama says so.

Naruto: Yeah, so… How old are you now, anyway? Old hag…

Psychic King:eyes turning red: NEVER ask a lady her age!

Uzu:sweat dropping: I guess that means pretty old, eh?

Psychic King: WHAT:drops cake and chases Uzu and Naruto around the room with a cleaver: Come HERE and say that! COWARDS!

Quote of the week: It is never too late to be what you might have been. –George Eliot

(I thought it was appropriate considering the sudden and completely uncalled for increase in my age)


	4. Quick Detour Part II

Well, welcome to chapter four! I apologize for my tardiness in this chapter, right after I said I'd have a chapter out a week, I end up skipping a week. Midterms were killer last week (out of five classes I had four tests and a paper all due last week). But THIS week I have made up for it with an update and the introduction of… shall I say, a promised character to the story. Anyway, you'll read and find out I'm sure, so please enjoy the chapter. Special thanks to my pre-readers, Ghostninja85 and QianYun!

:BREAK:

Exodus

Chapter 04

_Ganten!_ Ganten looked up from his fire-making as Rin's voice, like a distant whisper, called out to him. It sounded like he was in trouble, but… "Tenmar, did you hear something?"

Tenmar looked up from Mina's side as he dabbed a damp washcloth as her face, clearing the day's dirt from it. "No, why?"

"I thought I heard…" The white haired boy shook his head. "No, never mind."

_GANTEN!_

Ganten dropped the flint as once again he heard Rin's voice, this time louder. He glanced at his brother, but the man was back attending to Mina. Once more, he didn't seem to have noticed. Standing decisively, Ganten moved in the direction that Rin's tracks were heading, "I'm just going to check on something…"

Tenmar looked up as his youngest brother dashed away, face creasing with concern. "Alright…" _I hope nothing's wrong with Ganten; he didn't even finish building the fire, that's not like him._

Walking quickly, Ganten headed towards Rin, using the other boy's scent to track him. Rin had a warm, earthy scent. The kind of smell you got from sleeping on the ground for a few years. Mixed in with that smell was the smell of herbs, a little bit of a wet dog smell and the sweet smell of his sweat. Each person's body gave off a distinctive odor; it was like a fingerprint, a person's sweat.

_GANTEN!_ "GANTEN!"

Ganten's speed increased as he heard Rin's voice more clearly now, the sound of desperation clear in it. He could feel his sense of reason begin to slip away as fear for Rin's well-being over-took him. With a low growl, Ganten raised a clawed hand, tearing away at branches and overgrowths that were standing between himself and the most direct path to his companion. "RIN?" Ganten himself was surprised when his voice came out more like a growl than it normally did before the realization hit him that he was partially transformed.

"Ganten?" Rin's voice reached him only moments before the brunette himself appeared in Ganten's field of vision.

"Rin? Are you alright?" Ganten asked, calming slightly as he saw Rin, unharmed, but shaken, crawling his way back towards camp. Ganten leaned down, sweeping his friend into his arms and turning back towards camp.

"Ganten!" Rin's eyes were wide and wild, his normally dark complexion was pale and his face was beaded with sweat. "Ganten, they're coming!"

"Who's coming?" Ganten demanded, again increasing his speed towards camp. Rin's words and a sudden bad smell in the air, like something dark was on its way, made Ganten suddenly become frightened for his family.

"I don't know, but there's three of them, and one of them…" Rin buried his face in Ganten's arm, eyes squeezed shut. "Ganten, he's a monster. And so powerful." His voice barely came out in a whisper.

"That's fine." Ganten put a comforting hand on his friend's head, eyes hardening as a dark presence filled the forest. "It'll be OK. There's nothing in these woods, maybe not even in the whole world, that can take Daddy down."

"Aahh…" Rin panted, eyes rolling back in his head as the dark thoughts rose un-beckoned to his mind. "Uzu… What about Uzu?"

"What about Uzu?" Ganten demanded, feet skidding to a halt as they arrived in the center of camp.

Tenmar looked up anxiously, "Is everything OK?"

"They found Uzu…" Rin replied, breath coming on fast and uneven. "Oh my God…"

Ganten's head snapped up as the bone chilling sound of Uzu's distress howl reached the camp. Acting quickly, Ganten laid Rin down gently on the ground next to Mina. He took Moab from Tenmar and thrust him into Rin's arms. "I know you're upset, but right now, Uzu needs us. I need you to focus. Take care of Mina and Moab until Tenmar and I get back. If Daddy wakes up tell him where we are. If there are three of them, Tenmar, Uzu and I should be more than enough to take care of it. I know it's hard for you, but I need to focus on my mind right now. If things look bad, you NEED to hide yourself, Mina and Moab. Father can take care of himself. You got it?"

Rin nodded. His eyes were still as wide as saucers, but his breathing was beginning to even out as he did as Ganten asked and focused his mind on the boy's. He could sense the power welling in Ganten's mind as the animalistic side began to take over. He watched as Ganten, eyes red, looked to his brother. Both men nodded and then disappeared into the forest. Rin looked down at the baby Moab, whose eyes were also wide; face scrunched in silent fear. "It's OK…" Rin soothed, praying as he did so that his words would prove to be true. "Ganten'll take care of it…"

:BREAK:

With a wary grin, Uzu held up his hand, looking over his catch. Two large, health looking rabbits. It wasn't going to be a feast, but at the very least it would help his father gain some of his energy back. Hopefully. He shrugged, still grinning. Either way, it felt good to do things for the family, even if that did mean that Moab and Rin would also get to enjoy it.

Rin was still a problem for Uzu, he had verbally agreed to allow the boy to stay with them, but internally, he was still torn over the issue. Part of him was really OK with the boy; he and Ganten got along well, a rarity, and, despite everything, Rin's life choices didn't really seem to be that bad. He'd had a hard life and managed to survive, wasn't that all that anyone could ask of him?

On the other hand, surviving by affixing yourself to some evil guy and then helping said evil guy get his kicks by terrorizing and maiming large populations of people, not to mention helping him attempt to track down the people you were now expecting pity and understanding from… It was a lot for Uzu to take. Honestly, he wasn't sure he could understand Tenmar's easy forgiveness of the boy. But then, Tenmar had always been an overly understanding soul. Ganten's easy acceptance of Rin, Uzu understood. It was for the same reason that Uzu had suddenly developed a keen interest in walking a certain spiky-haired boy home from Sasuke's house whenever he'd gotten the chance. Even if Ganten wasn't ready to admit his attraction to Rin, the desire was still there, and it was an emotion that Uzu readily understood.

Uzu shook his head, a frustrated growl rising in his throat. It pissed him off to be this torn. Normally he didn't think too hard about things, he just liked something or someone or he didn't and that was that. Being torn was for humans and, truth be told, Uzu didn't really consider himself one. Partially human, certainly, but more than his brothers, maybe even more than his father, Uzu was part wild beast and much happier when he could let his body do the thinking for him. In fact-

Uzu's mind changed speeds, eyes widening as a dark shadow passed over the sky far above him. It was closely followed by another and then a moment later, another. Humans, 2 male and one female, their scents unfamiliar, but one of them reeked of blood and all of them had vicious battle auras up. Without thinking, Uzu dropped his hunting bag, leaving it forgotten on the forest floor as he dashed towards the already retreating figures. They were heading straight towards camp.

Moving faster than was technically safe, Uzu dashed across the forest floor, keeping his eyes on the sky, scanning for the two men. He had to stop them before they reached the camp. A battle at camp would be too dangerous for Mina, Moab and Rin. Although, another benefit to having Rin around was that the brown haired boy had probably already realized that these people were approaching and warned Tenmar and Ganten. Uzu shook his head, clearing his mind. If this guy's scent was any indication, he wouldn't have time for such thoughts at the moment. He could feel his self control starting to waver as he noticed still some distance away from camp, the three had stopped far up on a tree. Uzu silently clawed his way up the tree, listening to their conversation as he did so.

"Are you OK? Get a hold of yourself! We don't have time for this right now." One of the males was saying to the other, the smallest of the group.

Uzu softened his breathing, silently stalking his opponents. They were young, the oldest no older than he was, the youngest was probably just a little younger than Ganten was Uzu's guess. The younger one did indeed look worse for wear. He was shaking almost uncontrollably, his breath was coming out in sporadic huffs, eyes wide with dark circle around them like he hadn't slept in a lifetime and there was an excitement there, as his shaking continued and his aura grew. The kid was crazy.

"Calm down!" The first one said again, reaching a hand out to grab the other. "We've gotta get back, what the hell are you think-"

In a flash faster than Uzu's eyes could follow the smaller of the two swatted away the hand that reached out to him, "Shut up." Uzu stared in amazement as he watched the man who had just been swatted fly over a meter's distance to land with a resounding thud against a nearby tree.

The female immediately jumped to the first speaker's assistance, shooting an almost terrified glance towards the still shaking boy. "Kankurou! Are you OK?" She cried as she raced towards him, eyes wide. In a lowed voice, but still within Uzu's hearing range the girl whispered, "We need to do something about Gaara, quick, before things get out of control."

Uzu's eyes narrowed as he looked with distaste towards the smallest of the trio. Even if he was the alpha male, it didn't mean he could beat the crap out of his companions. Luckily, he was already in position above the little bastard, so… "Looks like you got an attitude problem, runt." Uzu grunted, as he jumped down, leg poised towards the boy's head. "I think it's time someone taught you some man-" Uzu grunted, eyes wide as his kick failed to connect. He had connected with SOMETHING, Uzu was certain of that, but not with the boy's skull, as had been his plan. He was certain the boy hadn't dodged. Uzu grinned; it was going to be a good fight.

Gaara glanced at the man that had had the nerve to attack him; a bored, irritated look over-taking his features. It wasn't THIS weakling he'd come to fight. No, the presence he had sensed was much stronger. Without speaking he reached a hand out towards the red headed man, and then with a smirk clenched his fist. "Desert coffin."

Uzu's eyes widened when he noticed that as the boy reached out towards him, sand was beginning to edge towards him, seemingly from nowhere, covering his body. Before the boy could speak more words, Uzu jumped, utilizing the full measure of speed that his birthright allowed him and escaping the sand's reach. Jumping up, he clung onto the branch above him with a grim satisfaction. He noted with a mixture of excitement and anxiety that the branch where he had been standing, a branch thicker than a man in diameter, cracked and crashed to the forest floor as the sand pressed in on it. Uzu grinned from his position, hanging from his claws to the branch above the boy. "That's a pretty neat trick you got there." Uzu noted, jumping down towards the boy once more. With a growl he raced towards the boy, hair, teeth and claws growing as he did so. "But wait 'till you see what I got up my sleeve."

Gaara narrowed his pale blue eyes, glaring at his escaped prey as the man dashed towards him.He was fast, but if this was the extent of his strength, then he wouldn't prove to be very entertaining and he was eager to fight the strong one he sensed earlier, to once again verify his existence. He stood unmoving as his red headed assailant dashed towards him. When the man's attack (a swiping attached with a suddenly very hairy, dangerously clawed hand) struck, Gaara closed his eyes as the sand around him did as it always did and moved to protect him. But his eyes flashed open as, somehow, a moment later the man's second attack managed to claw partially through the protective barrier of sand, claws stopping only centimeters away from his face. A twisted smile worked its way across Gaara's features. Perhaps he would play with this one before the end.

Uzu grunted as his attack did little other than dent his opponent's barrier, which would simply reform when he pulled his fist out of it… All that energy for nothin'. Then again, if it were easy, it wouldn't be fun. His eyes widened as he attempted to pull his claws from the sand. He was stuck.

The boy behind the shield began to chuckle. "I'll tear you apart one piece at a time." The boy said reaching hand towards Uzu's captured claws. "Starting with these."

Sharp pain flickered through Uzu's body as the sand began to tighten around his hand. Shit! I can't grow a hand back, bastard! And he's toying with me, too, doing this slowly… SHIT!With a frustrated growl, Uzu threw back his head, allowing more of his transformation to take over. He would lose his reasoning abilities, yes, but it would also make his claws longer and with that he should be able to hit his opponent. Assuming, that was, that his beast side would be able to reason that out as the best plan of action.

Gaara's eyes widened as his opponent threw back his head, sending out a long, angry sounding howl into the night. At the same time, the red head's hair, not only on his head, but all over his body, began to grow longer along with his claws and teeth. He jumped back in surprise as the free hand, fur covered and clawed, swiped past the sand barrier holding the other hand, at a speed that not even the sand could easily keep up with and, in surprise, allowed the sand to let got of the beast-boy's other hand. His mouth once again twisted into a humorless smile, "You won't get away aga-"

Gaara's words cut off as Uzu, a wild look in his eyes, fell to all fours, growling and then dashed towards him. Temari's eyes widened as she noticed that the boy looked less like a man and more like a beast. Fur was now covering every aspect of his body, his shirt had ripped completely off, revealing a fur covered chest. His body had also grown more than double its original size; in particular his arms grew longer, making a four legged dash perhaps the most logical option, not that logic seemed to be driving the man.

Even more amazing, in Temari's opinion, was how this new, beast-like attack that lacked any sense of strategy or thought seemed to be effectively pushing Gaara back. "Kankurou…"

He brother nodded eyes wide. "I know, I see it, too. Should we help Gaara?"

Temari thought for a moment, watching the battle as it progressed. The beast man was making significant progress in pushing Gaara back, although he seemed unable to deal him any real damage, but there was a swirl of sand surrounding the two's battle and frequent whimpering sounds could be heard as the sand dodged in and out of the battle, striking, crushing and basically dealing as much damage as possible in the frighteningly fast fury of the strange beast-man's attacks. Temari shook her head after a moment. "At this point if we get involved one or both of them will crush us before we can even get close. Let Gaara kill him, maybe then he'll calm down." She glanced down at her brother's doubtful eyes and shrugged. They had to hope for something.

:BREAK:

Tenmar followed Ganten as the white haired boy led them in the direction of Uzu's howl. He was worried. Although he loved his brother, he knew Uzu was, in general, a thoughtless bastard. He probably hadn't even thought to howl until he was in over his head. There was an oppressive, dark feel to the forest that grew the farther from camp they headed. Tenmar hoped that they would be able to handle whatever was waiting for them without having to bother their father. Naruto was exhausted and if he had to fight now, there was a serious chance of him falling in exhaustion.

As they ran an idea sprang up in Tenmar's mind and he quickly formed his summoning seals as they ran, perhaps the only high-level ninjutsu Tenmar knew. His hands paused as he thought about whom to summon. The twins were a bad choice, although they were usually eager to help in comparison to the other fox- they were still recovering from the LAST battle he'd called them to fight in against Kentaar. The big boss was out of the question, the only person he'd ever listened to or fought for had been Naruto himself, and even then his loyalty was questionable. The only really left… "Ganten, I'm summoning Buren! We can't afford to have Father called out to this fight."

Ganten nodded without turning around. "Good plan."

Tenmar sighed as he finished his jutsu and with a large puff of smoke, a fox about the size of a horse appeared, falling into place next to Tenmar. "You called, whelp?" The fox asked in a slow, bored drawl.

Tenmar nodded, wincing internally. Buren was a powerhouse, certainly, but his mind was a little on the slower side and once he started fighting the chances of him actually stopping until the enemy was dead, and likely eaten, to Tenmar's disgust, were slim to none. But right now what they needed was someone that they wouldn't have to argue with, that would provide a good show of force against whoever it was they were about to face. "I don't know who the enemy is, but Uzu's in trouble and I want to make sure that Father doesn't have to be called into this battle, understand?"

"Heh heh heh… Gotcha. Letting your father slack off for a bit? That's fine. 'Course I miss fighting alongside him, but whatcha gonna do?" Buren laughed again, a low almost hissing type of sound. "An' who knows? Maybe he'll come along later, anyway."

Tenmar opened his mouth to respond, but a thudding sound followed by a pained whelping noise that could only be Uzu caused his words to halt in his throat. The three of them picked up their speed, sudden fear for Uzu's well-being filling both Ganten and Tenmar's hearts. As they ran, Tenmar could feel his body transforming further and further. If Uzu was having problems, then Tenmar would need to be at the very top of his game to even think about surviving. They reached an area where the trees were less dense and their eyes were met with a horrifying sight.

Uzu was as transformed as Tenmar had ever seen him, it almost looked like a full-scale transformation, except he still looked a little human and he was far too small. He was lying, unmoving on a branch; a strange looking boy with reddish-brown hair was standing over him, pale blue eyes gleaming in what looked like triumph. The boy's face looked cracked, not that that made any sense, how could his FACE be cracked? Uzu's normally red fur looked brown at first glance, but upon closer inspection it became obvious that he was actually covered in what looked like sand. His breathing was ragged and it looked like he was struggling for consciousness, and it was obvious that he was in his 'animalistic' mindset. Off to the side sat two people, one man and one woman, looking between Uzu and the new arrivals with wide eyes.

Ganten acted quickly, growling as he noticed the boy standing over Uzu. Putting all of his strength in his legs, Ganten raced head first towards the boy, smacking into him with his shoulder. "Don't TOUCH my brother, bastard!" His voice came out in a low growl as the red head was pushed back a couple feet. The sand seemed to dissipate as the man was pushed back further and Ganten quickly gathered Uzu into his arms and carried him a decent distance away.

Even animalistic Uzu recognized his brother's scent and allowed the boy to carry him away from the demon that he'd been fighting. Ganten put Uzu down and Tenmar could tell that the boy was shaking, a look of rage and fear were mingling across the boy's face and Tenmar was certain that a similar look was on his own. What kind of monster could do this much damage to Uzu in so short a time?

Temari stood as the three newcomers appeared. If they had only shown up a few moments later, then maybe Gaara would have calmed down and they could have convinced him to resume the mission without hunting down the others, but now, from the look on his face, they would be lucky if Gaara would be able to stop after he finished killing all of them. It was possible that this battle itself would prove to be what pushed Gaara off the deep end, a depth that she feared he would not be able to return from. "Kankurou, get ready. We can't let Gaara take on all four of them on his own."

Kankurou looked at his sister skeptically, then at the three newcomers. Two looked like the other had, animal men, the other was some kind of mutant fox. After watching the way the last animal-man had actually managed to push Gaara around, and maybe even hurt the boy (that was hard to tell), he was less than eager to take one of them on in a fight. With a sigh he lifted Karasu off his back and placed him firmly on the tree branch, pulling slightly as his wrappings. "Let's get to it, then. I'll take the Blondie; you get that giant freak-fox thing. I have a feeling the white-furred one is going after Gaara." Temari nodded, already jumping on her fan and floating towards the giant fox. Kankurou sighed, wondering why nothing could ever be simple when Gaara was involved.

:BREAK:

Rin sat with wide eyes, listening to Ganten's mind as the boy ran towards Uzu. When he reached the man, Rin could feel Ganten's anger at the monster-man that had hurt Uzu and winced. "No, Ganten…" Rin moaned, cradling Moab closer as he did so. "Not that one, don't fight him, anyone but that one…" He could feel helpless tears welling in his eyes and a sudden fear that he would never see Ganten again filled his being. He hated how useless he was right now.

Still cradling Moab, Rin glanced around. At least he would do as Ganten requested; he would find a safe place for Moab, Mina and himself. Pain seared through Rin's body as he grabbed hold of Mina's bed and began to drag it to the nearby bush. The key would be to cover the bush so no part of Mina or himself would be visible, but also so that it didn't look like someone WOULD be hiding there. Also, it would be important to disguise their smell and-

Rin's eyes fell on Naruto as he labored at hiding Mina. _If Naruto were fighting I'm sure the battle would be over in a few seconds… This guy's nowhere near as strong as Naruto, I'm certain of it… Ganten asked me not to wake him up, but…_

Naruto stirred in his sleep, small smile on his face as he muttered something in his sleep. After a moment Rin moved towards the man. He LOOKED well-rested. Nowhere near as exhausted as he had been when they'd first arrived at camp. He probably had a little fight in him at this point. After all, he'd been sleeping for over an hour now. Rin moved closer to the blonde, reaching out a tentative hand. His eyes widened in surprise as Naruto's hand grabbed Rin's own. For a brief moment Rin thought Naruto must have woken up, then Naruto rolled over, still holding Rin's hand and muttering softly, "Sasuke…"

"Naruto!" Rin yelled sharply, trying to wrench his hand back as the blonde's dream began to filter into him. Rin blushed. "Naruto! Wake up! Ganten and the others are in trouble!" As if to accentuate Rin's pleas, Moab opened his mouth, letting out a long, low wail.

Naruto jumped to his feet, eyes wide at the sound of Moab's cry. "I'm awake, what's wrong with the baby?" He asked sleepily.

Rin grinned, Naruto's mind was still accessible to him as the man was still clinging to his hand and it made him laugh that when Naruto asked what was wrong with the baby, Naruto was thinking of a baby Ganten or Mina. The happy feeling lasted for only a moment as his mind once again brushed against Ganten's mind. He could feel the boy as he screamed in pain and rage. Things were NOT going well. "Naruto, it's Ganten and the others… They went off to fight this badass that showed up, but I don't think they can handle it. He's already beaten Uzu and now he's working on Ganten. He has two goons that are keeping Tenmar and some fox he conjured from helping Ganten. I'm sorry to wake you, but if you don't help I'm afraid that you're not gonna have a family to fight for soon."

Naruto stared at the boy as the words continued to rush from his mouth. In his sleepy state it took a moment for him to grasp what exactly Rin was trying to say, but Rin's last words were enough to put him in motion. Naruto jumped to his feet, "What direction?"

Rin pointed, watching for a moment as the blonde rushed off towards his sons before calling after the man. "Naruto!"

"Yeah?" He replied, turning towards Rin with a look that was less than patient.

Mustering all of his strength, Rin tossed Naruto his pants and a shirt. "You may want these. Be careful, and bring Ganten back."

Naruto looked down, realizing for the first time that he was undressed. It made sense, seeing as how he went to sleep immediately after turning back into a human. He hadn't had the energy to change into something at that point, now he didn't have the time. Naruto looked at the near panicked look on Rin's face and winked at the boy. "Don't worry; I'll bring Ganten back to you." With that he was off, dashing as fast as he could through the forest while attempting to pull his pants on.

Rin smiled, suddenly feeling much more optimistic about the fight. With a sigh he moved back towards Mina and their hiding place; just in case. He glanced down at Moab, who suddenly looked like a very tired baby. "It's OK, go to sleep now. Everything will be just fine."

:BREAK:

"What do you MEAN, no one matching that description had been though here?" Sasuke demanded.

Shikamaru sighed, trying to disentangle the ferry owner from Sasuke's grip without pissing the other boy off, a feat that was turning out to be most difficult. "Oi, calm down! I knew there was a chance they'd do this, but it's fine. It increases our chances of catching up with them before they cross the sea, so just put that guy down… Geeze."

Sasuke glared at the other boy, but released the shop owner with a grunt. "Whatever." He muttered, shoving his hands into his pickets and storming out of the business establishment.

Shikamaru gave a man a small smile. "So, how much to ferry the two of us across the bay?" The man gave him a dry look, but eventually stated a price. Shikamaru winced, wondering how much extra they were paying for having him transport a 'dangerous person.' He sighed, whatever, Sasuke was paying, anyway. But the other boy's attitude was getting old quick and Shikamaru was getting tired of being the 'people person' in the group.

He walked out of the store, and glanced up and down the street, eyeing Sasuke standing outside a restaurant of some sort. Eating food that wasn't cooked over a campfire, now THAT was a good idea; eating food that he didn't have to cook himself, even better. "Hey. I managed to buy tickets for us, but it wasn't easy after your display." As Shikamaru spoke he led Sasuke into the restaurant, grateful for the chance to relax for once. "Anyway, the boat leaves in a couple hours and it'll take two days to get all the way across the bay. We ended up paying through our nose because of you, but at least the guy's gonna let us on the boat. The next nearest town with a ferry to Port Town is half day's travel." The spiky haired boy shook his head, not attempting to conceal his annoyance, "you really need to THINK before you act."

Sasuke glared at his companion. He didn't like be reprimanded, even if he WAS in the wrong. Instead of focusing on his mistake, however, he decided to focus on Shikamaru's. "Why didn't you tell me there was a possibility that they would go around the bay?" He demanded.

Shikamaru glanced at the other boy with a long-suffering sigh. _He can't be serious, right?_

:BREAK:

Well, I hope you liked my surprise guest star! Well, maybe not so much of a surprise or a guest, but either way, I LOVE Gaara! YAY! Oh and YES, Ganten was hearing Rin inside his mind… WHY, you may ask? Well, that's yet to be disclosed, so you'll just have to wait a chapter or maybe ever two in order to find out. But more importantly, isn't Gaara so cute?

OK, well, all this leads me to a very important question. I was wondering which of the characters, original or other wise people like the most/would like to see the most focus on. I'm NOT talking about couples, as the characters that HAVE a coupling are (for the most part) pretty far away from their significant other. This question is purely directed towards a character as an individual, and so you are aware, the answers I get will help me know who to focus on randomly. So if in a review you could let me know who's your favorite character and maybe WHY I'd REALL appreciate it. Think of it as a poll, but without the handy polling functions, so you have to do actual work and probably have less fun…? Well, anyway, thanks in advance for those of you who reply!


	5. Quick Detour End

Well, here it is, the conclusion of the fight with Gaara. I know the last thing any of you want to do is sit here and read a long author's note BEFORE reading the chapter, so I'll save it for the end. Just to warn you this one's longer than usual (the chapter not the notes), not that it's usually bone-breakingly long, but you may want to be prepared. There, end disclaimer. Enjoy the chapter, and if you can, please take a moment when you're done to review and let me know how I'm doing…

:BREAK:

Exodus

Chapter 05

It was a warm day, with the sun shining brightly down upon the almost-completely reconstructed Konoha. Iruka grinned as he watched his students run around the school yard laughing happily with each other. It was small wonder that they were having trouble concentrating on their classes with the weather so nice and the town finally on its way back to normality.

His grin widened as he thought about a similar day a few years back when Naruto was still his student. The town was finally getting over the horror of the betrayal of Uchiha Itachi. A festival was on its way and the children in the class were difficult to control that day, especially Naruto. The blond had sneaked into the classroom early that morning with a large collection of earthworms and subterranean insects and hid them inside the box Iruka kept his chalk in. When he opened the box and reached a hand in without looking, the school teacher gave a shriek of fright and without thinking tossed the box away from himself. He should have realized that something was up; Naruto had been snickering all morning, and was barely able to contain himself as Iruka pulled the box out of his desk…

When Iruka shrieked, Naruto immediately jumped to his feet, pointing and laughing at his teacher. It wasn't until a moment later that he realized where the box of creepy-crawly creatures had landed. Iruka wasn't sure he had ever seen Sasuke so furious; with an overturned box of earthworms on top his head, insects and worms alike crawling down his shirt in an attempt to escape the sunlight. Of course, Iruka had apologized profusely, but the dark-haired boy didn't seem to hear him, focusing all of his anger, instead, on Naruto, who raced around the classroom shrieking in laughter and fear for the both frightening and hilarious picture of Sasuke's rage. It took Iruka a full fifteen minutes to calm the class afterwards, and then he'd forced Naruto to apologize to both himself and Sasuke and then helped Sasuke wash himself behind the school. If her remembered correctly, as additional punishment he'd asked the boy to write an essay on the nature of subterranean insects and their uses in Ninja medicine. Iruka shook his head as he thought about it… He didn't think he ever actually got the essay from Naruto, but with the festival coming up he had decided to let it slide.

Naruto had an unrivaled love of anything like a festival. Iruka suspected it had something to do with the boy's family situation- being around all these happy, laughing families was the closest Naruto ever got to being an actual part of a family; well, until his memories of the Kyuubi were revealed to him. Now, not did he have a full family with three sons and a daughter, but also Sasuke who went chasing after him. Iruka sighed, thinking back to the earthworm incident again. That was the first time since his family had been destroyed that Sasuke had expressed any emotion at all. He should have noticed it then, how easily the dark haired boy allowed the mischievous blond to get under his skin. The two of them were definitely well-suited for each other…

With a sigh, Iruka looked towards the sky, wondering if Sasuke and Shikamaru had actually managed to catch up to Naruto and his family yet. With a shake of his head, he cleared his mind of such thoughts. He needed to focus on the children in front of him. With a clap of his hands, Iruka called, "OK, guys, time to pack it in! Back to lessons!" His words were greeted with resounding groans and the children turned grudgingly back towards the dim school house.

:BREAK:

Naruto raced through the woods in the direction Rin had pointed him in. His sharp ears were already picking up sounds of the fight. His eyes narrowed as he moved closer and a familiar aura began to permeate towards him. It was an aura he recognized, someone that he was… acquainted with long ago. But it wasn't possible that the man his children were fighting and the man Naruto knew were the same person; that man was dead and the world was a better place because of it. He couldn't have somehow come back to life, it was impossible… right?

With a determined howl Naruto allowed his body to move towards partial-transformation; forming elongated arms, claws, teeth and snout. He hoped that this amount of power would be enough to ward off any enemy, even one that all three of his sons were apparently having a hard time fighting. If he had to go into a full-transformation, he wasn't sure that he would be able to conserve enough energy to continue their travels the next day. His speed picked up as he noticed full, large trees crashing to the ground. It appeared that they were not fighting in a clearing, but apparently they were slowly clearing the area themselves.

With a determined growl, he broke onto the scene, quickly and furiously taking note of his children's situations. Uzu was the easiest to spot, still transformed but lying, panting, on a nearby branch. The fact that he was still transformed gave Naruto hope, it meant he was conscious, and his healing was significantly faster in that state, but it also meant that the boy had been pushed to his limit.

Tenmar looked to be in better shape, but only marginally. At first glance, it appeared he was fighting a multitude of opponents; arms, legs, fingers, and two heads could be seen. But a closer look determined that there was really only one opponent and one… puppet? Naruto shook his head, Tenmar was fighting well, and it looked like he had the upper hand. Naruto's guess was that his eldest son's opponent relied heavily on poisoning his victims, a tactic that only worked so long as your opponent didn't have a self healing ability that worked faster than the poison. Naruto just hoped that the man didn't have any faster working poison… otherwise, Tenmar should be fine.

To Naruto's surprise and slight disappointment, it looked like Tenmar had summoned Buren. Buren! He was an alright choice for a brute strength mission, but his personality and intelligence were low and more often than not, he'd ended up being a hindrance rather than a help as he was completely unable to focus on anything other than his personal fight, causing trouble when there were other fights going on around them. Despite this face, it looked like he was sufficiently keeping one of the opponents busy and, to be fair; he didn't seem to be interrupting any other fight at the moment. Naruto sighed as his eyes scanned for Ganten; he would have to have a long talk with Tenmar about each of their fox's personalities and natures, if he'd summoned Buren for-

Naruto's head cleared sharply as his eyes landed on his youngest son's battle, all thoughts of reprimanding Tenmar disappearing. Ganten's opponent was standing on a tree branch, a dark gleam in his blue eyes; beneath him hung Ganten, dangling from what looked like some sand formation clamped around his head. Naruto could see his son kicking and clawing at whatever was wrapped around his head, but to no avail. Without thinking, at a speed faster than most eyes could follow, Naruto hurtled himself at the boy tormenting his son. There was little doubt in his mind what was going on; the sand, the blood, the dark penetrating feeling, somehow the Shukaku had managed to find an outlet in this young boy.

"Get your sand OFF my son, you bastard!" Naruto gritted out between clenched teeth, ramming into the man hard enough to send him flying, sand and all. Having fought the man before, Naruto was more than familiar with the sand shield surrounding the man. It took more brute force than most even had to make the smallest dent in the armor of sand, but it was possible. "Ganten! Ganten, are you alright?" Naruto asked concern thick in his voice as he grabbed his son and carried him away.

Ganten opened a hazy eye slowly and painfully as he felt his father's arms around him. The sand was gone; he let out a small, fragile laugh, he could still FEEL it around him, on him, squeezing, but as his father carried him, the pain began to fade. "I guess I failed. I didn't want you to have to get involved."

Naruto gave his son a small smile, ruffling his hair slightly. "Don't say that, what good am I if I can't protect my boys?" His face turned serious as he placed Ganten down next to Uzu. "I want you to watch over Uzu, only get involved in the fight if Tenmar or Buren need your help, got it?" Standing and turning towards the now recovering Gaara, he said in a low voice, "I'll take care of our little sand-demon."

Ganten almost shivered at the cold look in his father's eyes, but nodded, silently agreeing to his terms. Ganten realized, with amazement, that despite the way that boy had torn through both Uzu and himself, he was confident that his father would have absolutely no problem with him. Ganten wondered briefly when exactly he'd grown to have so much trust in the man, but he had to admit as he watched Naruto stroll up to his opponent in an almost leisurely pace, the blonde's confidence was amazing. Ganten was well aware of the fact that in the fight with Kentaar, Naruto had not been at full power; the effects of the seal that was placed on him twelve years ago were still present, but fading with each day. Despite that fact, his father's confidence left little doubt in Ganten's mind as to the outcome of this fight. "Oi, Uzu, you feeling better?"

Uzu, still not quite back to his senses, gave a low growl in return, standing to his feet shakily.

Ganten grinned, scratching his brother behind his now fox-like ears, something Uzu enjoyed when transformed, but would be annoyed about if he remembered the action later. "Good boy. Just sit back down and relax. Daddy's got it under control."

:BREAK:

Naruto walked slowly towards his opponent, taking in his appearance as he walked. The boy was young, probably about Sasuke's age; it must have been quite a burden to bear, housing a demon within you. From what Naruto could tell, the boy had control of his own body right now, a blessing, but there was no doubt that his power source was Shukaku. The amazing, perhaps painful thing about the boy was his eyes, pale blue with no happiness or compassion, no joy, not even when he had been laughing over Ganten's defeat earlier. Naruto easily recognized the look in the boy's eyes; it was pain, cold anger, emptiness, it was everything he felt in Konoha until Iruka-sensei took him in. This boy was not only raised to be a weapon, but he was left alone and loveless as well. With a sigh, Naruto shook his head. "What's your name, kid?"

Gaara narrowed his eyes in reply, a swirl of sand hovering around him as Naruto moved closer. To his annoyance, the blond seemed to decrease in power as he walked towards him, shrinking down to the form of a young man, rather than the half-beast of moments before. It was clearly obvious that the man was underestimating him. A smile twitched across Gaara's face; an opponent like this… one way or another, his existence would be validated tonight.

"Father! What are you doing?" Ganten screamed as Naruto allowed his transformation to fall.

The blonde turned to smile cheekily at his son before once again turning wary eyes towards the boy he was about to fight. "Don't worry; I know what I'm doing." Muttering unconcernedly under his breath he added, "I'm pretty sure…"

Gaara looked to the white haired boy in annoyance as the blond turned his attention back towards him. They were father and son and helping each other in their time of need? What a joke. Thoughts of Gaara's own father began to swell unbidden to his mind, causing the boy to fall to his knees in distress, hands clutching at his head. Memories of constantly being alone, memories of being discarded, unwanted, memories of the assassins that were sent after him, especially that one… A roar of pain and anger emerged from his lips.

Naruto looked down at his opponent, compassion filling his being as the boy screamed, clawing at his head. Something about his conversation with Ganten had sent the boy off, Naruto was certain of it. Looking at him, Naruto came to a decision. He couldn't just leave the boy alone, he couldn't send him back to whoever or whatever had made him like that in the first place. No, Naruto decided as his opponent stood, a new gleam of anger or hatred filling his young, tired eyes- he would find a way to take the boy with them. He would put his life on the line for this child. "Ah, so you're feeling better, now, hum?"

In reply to Naruto's question Gaara stood, fierce rage flowing through his being. Raising a hand, his sand flew out once more, this time attaching itself to the blond, covering his body entirely. An evil smirk crossed Gaara's face as the man stood where he was, not moving even an inch to defend himself, not that it would have helped. "Desert coffin." He closed his fist, shaking his head. He'd expected at least some amount of fight from the man before he was killed. His _son_ had put up a better fight. The whole situation left a disappointing feel in the pit of his stomach. Anger growing exponentially with each moment, Gaara turned towards the white haired boy. It was time to clean up the tra-

"That's pretty cool." A voice said slowly in Gaara's ear, causing the boy to spin suddenly, coming face to face with an upside down Naruto, who was hanging from the branch above them casually. "But it's not enough." Naruto added, releasing the branch he was hanging onto and flipping himself upright.

"Here's how I figure it." Naruto continued, moving to stand in front of Gaara. "We both have a shit-load of chakra, and we both have enough skills to keep ourselves from dieing until we run out of chakra. So... how about a deal?"

Gaara stared at the man in return, still shocked about the man's survival from his desert coffin. People had run away from it, escaped it, done a body switching jutsu on it, but never before in the farthest reaches of his memory had anyone ever simply withstood it without so much as a crushed bone. Without so much as a scratch… So perhaps it was the surprise that made him reply suspiciously, "What kind of deal?"

Naruto grinned, "I knew you were a smart kid. My proposal is this: whoever runs out of chakra is the loser, and the loser has to do whatever the winner says with no complaint. So if you win, I'll sit still and let you kill me or whatever. Sound good?"

If Gaara had had a normal childhood, at this point he probably would have scoffed at Naruto's 'proposal', which sounded much more like the kind of deal a child makes on the playground at the age of six than a grown man makes during a fight. However, Gaara did not have a normal childhood and he was currently up against an opponent that, at the very least was perplexing. On top of that, Gaara could think of nothing that Naruto would want to do to him other than kill him, having had a sheltered childhood to say the very least. So after a moment of thought, he nodded at his opponent, sealing the deal between them.

Naruto's grin widened. "OK, kid, hold on to your seat, then, 'cause I ain't holdin' back!"

:BREAK:

Shikamaru settled down comfortably as the ship that was going to take them to Port Town finally moved away from dock. They'd gotten to the ship over three hours ago, when they were told it would be leaving, but for one reason or another, the ship wasn't able to leave right away. Sasuke had gone nuts when he'd head the ship's departure would be delayed and Shikamaru had taken that as a sign to excuse himself from his companion's side. He'd found a nice corner below deck to hide in and spent the last three or so hours going over shougi games in his head.

Once he heard the sound of the ship preparing for departure, however, Shikamaru decided to head up deck. The breeze was nice and the sky was crisp and clear. Even though it was bound to be dark soon, for the moment at least, everything was just as he liked it. Lying on his back on a pile of currently unused rope, he watched the clouds lazily pass over the sky.

"THERE you are!" Shikamaru groaned as the captain's booming voice reached his ears, a moment later stepping into view above him. "Listen here, young man, I want you to tell your friend to calm down. He's been a disturbance since he got on this ship and I won't have him disturbing my crew and passengers with his ridiculous antics! If you can't keep an eye on him, I'll let both of you off the ship at the next stop, and I'll warn you that we're the only ship that travels to that island on a weekly basis."

With a sigh, Shikamaru sat up, grumbling as he did so. Why had he decided to move from the concealment of below deck? He should have known better than to assume that Sasuke would calm down simply because the ship left dock. Trudging past the captain, still grumbling, Shikamaru went off to find and sedate Sasuke, forcibly if necessary.

"He's at the bow right now!" The captain called after him.

With another long-suffering sigh, Shikamaru moved towards the bow, where four couples were standing, presumably for the purpose of enjoying the view and having a moment of privacy, however, they obviously hadn't expected to find an anxious Sasuke stomping back and forth across the bow, storming entirely too close to each of them for their own comfort. "Hey, kid!" One of the men said finally, reaching a hand out and grabbing Sasuke's shoulder. "Why don't you do that somewhere el-"

The man's words caught in his throat as Sasuke turned the full force of his glare upon the unsuspecting man, then turning the glare down to the hand. The man released Sasuke as if the boy's eyes were burning holes into this hand, he and his girlfriend quickly moved away from the bow. The other couples seemed eager to follow suit and were gone by the time it took Shikamaru to reach Sasuke. "Man… Didn't I tell you to calm down?"

Sasuke turned his glare to Shikamaru, but the other boy shrugged it off carelessly. After a moment Sasuke gave up glaring and sighed. "Something's wrong."

"Yeah, if you don't stop freaking out, you're gonna get both of us kicked off the ship." Shikamaru replied, still in his bored tone.

Sasuke shook his head, looking out to sea. "With Naruto. I can feel it."

Shikamaru looked out in the direction Sasuke was facing, wondering what the other boy saw to make him so uneasy, but only the water, and in the distance a forested land greeted his eyes. They were far from home, far from everything they knew and now heading even farther away in pursuit of people that God alone knew if they would ever find. Assuming they got lucky and did find them, they still had a good chance of being patted on the head and sent back home. For Sasuke, Shikamaru knew the anxiety was even greater as he had no real home to return to without Naruto and his family… But still, none of this was an excuse to act up the way the boy had been. He was acting like a child. Shikamaru sighed, glancing up at the sky for a moment as he thought about how to calm the other boy down. With a shrug he returned his eyes to Sasuke, "Not much we can do about it right now." He let his words sink into Sasuke's mind for a moment before adding, "Wanna a game of shougi?"

After a long moment of staring at the forest, Sasuke sighed, then nodded. Shikamaru was right. He would just have to trust that blond dobe to survive without him for a while. He wasn't helping anyone with the way he'd been acting. "Fine."

:BREAK:

Ganten stared in wonder at his father's fight. He had never expected his father's opponent to agree to the simple and rather childish proposal. When the boy nodded, Ganten thought his jaw must have hit the ground, so much was his surprise. He wouldn't have thought his surprise could get much bigger, but as he watched his father fighting the boy it grew larger with each passing moment. The two were obviously both far over powered and very skilled. Naruto seemed to be giving far more blows than he received, but each was dampened by the wall of sand that surrounded the boy, not that they weren't effective.

The redhead shrieked in pain as another of Naruto's punches managed to go straight THROUGH the sand barrier to connect with his face. Ganten shook his head once more in amazement, an action he seemed to be doing every few moments during this fight. He hadn't known his father was THIS powerful, no wonder Tenmar always said things like, "When we find Father, then everything will be alright…" To top everything else off, Naruto seemed to have a good battle plan, mostly only attacking with his fists and legs, he only really used chakra to heal whatever wounds he got during the fight. On the other hand, his opponent constantly using chakra to maintain his sand shield and, as he had a far weaker body than Naruto, also to attack, and to top it off he was in some sort of quasi-transformed stage, sand creating a new head, tail and two monstrous arms for the boy. This was really lucky on Naruto's end as he was already lower on chakra than he would normally be since he'd spent a large portion of the day as a giant fox.

A sudden gust of sandy wind almost sent both Ganten and Uzu flying backwards as they watched their father's battle in amazement. Naruto had created enough clones to populate a small city, although it was obvious that each were rather weak, and his opponent had done some crazy sort of sand storm attack, effectively knocking each of the clones out of existence. It looked like the sand storm had cost a large amount of energy, as the boy spent a few moment panting before he rushed venomously towards Naruto, sand-claw lashing out at the blond, even as his tail swished towards him for a surprise attack. Naruto jumped out of the way of the claws, only to get smacked by the tail. With a grin, the head of the Uzumaki family grabbed the tail, using all his strength and none of his chakra to swing the boy around in a circle briefly before slamming him against a tree, an action that perhaps was used less to cause damage to his opponent than allowing himself to keep from being smacked by the tail himself, but it was effective considering the amount of chakra the other boy had been forced to use to avoid being overly damaged.

Turning his head, Ganten went back to watching Tenmar's fight. Tenmar seemed to be slowing down, but then, so did his opponent. On the plus side for Tenmar, he seemed to have managed to smash several parts to the deadly puppet the man wielded. The fact that the fight wasn't over yet was a cause for concern for Ganten, however. Tenmar seemed to have the upper hand, but was unable to make any kind of finishing blow, leaving Ganten to worry if it was not the sheer amount of poison his elder brother had taken in over the course of the fight.

Buren alone seemed to be dominating his fight, and that was probably only due to the fact that he was too heavy and big for many of her wind attacks to affect him much. She had a great wind slicing kind of attack, but Buren was quick footed, even if his wits were slow, and he managed to avoid most of them. Those that hit did seem to be causing a certain amount of pain, and he was definitely bleeding, but his movements were not slowed by any of this as he knocked her once more out of the air with a gigantic paw. It also worked to their advantage that the girl seemed to be distracted by the fight between the redhead and Naruto.

Ganten's head snapped back to Tenmar as he heard his brother cry out in anguish. He turned in time to see several darts sticking into his brother's body, each, presumably covered in poison. Ganten gritted his teeth, standing to his feet despite the pain that he felt. His body had managed to heal itself a decent amount in the time he sat and relaxed, it was time to relieve Tenmar. Next to him, he heard Uzu rise to his feet as well, a growl in his throat. It was time to help out Tenmar.

:BREAK:

Kankurou grimaced as he finally managed to hit his opponent. At the beginning of the fight, the man had been near impossible to get more than a scratch on, he moved overly fast and seemed to be able to anticipate where the next attack was coming from; most likely an advantage from his animal-type transformation- providing him with better hearing and smelling capabilities. It had taken what seemed like forever for him to even come close to slowing down, an amount of time that he'd managed to get a few good hits in on Kankurou himself, although mostly he'd seemed more concerned with breaking Karasu.

But now he was down, probably for a long while, too. It had taken enough poison to kill a whole heard of horses, but the bastard was down. Of course, now his annoying companions, the ones that had been fighting with Gaara earlier, were moving towards him, intent on protecting the blond, but that was fine with him… All Kankurou had to do at this point was-

His eyes widened, fear overwhelming his entire being as he heard an unearthly sound emit from the direction of Gaara's fight. Kankurou's movement stopped cold as he glanced over towards his brother to see that he had fully transformed. "Temari!" Kankurou screamed, for a moment forgetting about the two opponents barreling towards him. "When the hell did THAT happen?"

His sister shook a frightened head, forgetting about her own opponent as she stared wide eyed and terrified in the face of her brother's full power. She heard the sound of Gaara's dark laughter as his upper torso was forced out of the gigantic raccoon like body.

"This gets more and more interesting!" Gaara's voice boomed out, as if on a loud speaker. Every battle stopped as every eye in the vicinity turned to him. "As a reward I'll let you see my TRUE power… FORCED SLEEP JUTSU!"

Temari's eyes widened as the boy slumped over suddenly, eyes closed. "Kankurou, draw back! Get as far away from Gaara as possible!"

"Right!" Kankurou replied, already on the move back.

The Uzumaki family, much more used to being around gigantic animal-creature-people, stood their ground, watching anxiously for signs of their father. Even Buren, normally a very single minded attacker, chose not to follow his prey as he stared at the giant creature before him.

A sudden, shrill laughter emitted from the giant sand-creature as he lifted his hands in a victorious manner. "Finally! I'm FREE!"

"Oi… Shukaku, he's called you out already?" Naruto asked, leaning lazily against a tree as he watched the giant creature shriek like a child that had just been given a toy.

"The fox!" Shukaku shrieked, in a tone that portrayed a great excitement. "Kya haha! Finally! After all these years! Are you ready to taste death at my hand?" Not waiting for a reply he shrieked out something unintelligible and the next thing Naruto's children knew, they were dashing out of the way of a gigantic ball of what looked like raw chakra.

Naruto glanced down, making sure that his children were out of the way before easily jumping away from the ball himself. He chuckled, "You're just wasting chakra like that, you know." Narrowing his eyes he added, "I won't let you do as you please with that boy's body."

"How're you gonna stop me, fox?" Shukaku shrieked, laughing as he did so.

Naruto held his hands together in a seal that his family knew to be very familiar, with a triumphant air he called out, "Kage bunshin no jutsu!" Five Naruto clones appeared, each making a mad dash towards the giant sand creature. Naruto used the moment's confusion to duck out of the fight, moving quickly to the area Tenmar and the others had moved to for shelter. "Tenmar!" He whispered urgently, placing a hand on his eldest son's shoulder.

Tenmar turned large, almost frightened eyes to his father. Never before, in the entirety of his life had such a young boy frightened him quite this much. "Father, what IS that?"

Naruto shook his head, "No time to explain. Tenmar, I need you to take Uzu and Buren and get out of here, take that guy's companions if you can find them, too. I'll keep that bastard busy an' open a window for your escape, so just wait for the right moment and then run. He's fixated on me right now, anyway." Turning to Ganten, Naruto continued, "How you doing?"

Shrugging, Ganten replied in the lightest tone he could muster considering the situation, "I've been better, but I'll live."

Naruto grinned, ruffling the boy's hair for a moment before continuing. "That's good, because I need you to do something for me. I can hold that sand-demon for about ten minutes before he gets too powered up for me to hold him without killing the boy. I need you to find an opening and wake that bastard up. A good smack should just about do it, you understand?"

"Father!" The reproach in Tenmar's voice was clear, "How could you ask Ganten to do something so dangerous? Leave it to me, Ganten, you take care of taking Uzu and the others to safety, and I'll-"

Naruto opened his mouth as if to defend his decision, but Ganten cut in quickly before their time ran out, "No, Tenmar, Father's right. I'm the only one in good enough shape to do this, you're slowed down by the poison, Uzu's not quite himself right now and Buren's too big to approach the creature without being detected." Turning to his father, Ganten said, "I understand. I'll get it done no matter what."

Naruto nodded solemnly, looking over his sons with a confident smile. "OK, then you all know what to do. Tenmar, you take the first moment Shukaku's distracted and get out of here; Ganten will take the next opening and wake that kid up. Remember, it has to done quickly or-"

An echoing popping sound resounded through the forest, warning all that Shukaku had finally finished playing with Naruto's clones, leaving the consequences of not finishing this in a timely fashion unsaid. Nevertheless, both Tenmar and Ganten had a good feeling of exactly how important their individual tasks were. They watched in concerned admiration as their father grinned at them, pulling off his clothing and stepping towards his opponent. Before transforming, he turned quickly towards them, mouth forming words that could not be heard over the sand-beast's howling. It looked like he was saying "Be careful."

:BREAK:

Ganten watched in almost rigid silence as his father transformed into his full fox form, all nine tails twitching as he growled at his opponent. It was enough to make Ganten tremble; Naruto looked even more oppressive and terrifying than he had during the fight against Kentaar. It amazed Ganten that his father could seem so benign in this form only hours earlier as he transported them around the bay.

With a snarl, Naruto dashed towards his opponent, teeth managing to sink deeply into the creature's jugular, only to pull back with a mouthful of sand, but it was enough. Tenmar used that moment to take Uzu and Buren and make a mad dash for it, ducking as quickly as they could under the concealment of branches and dashing away from the fight and in the opposite direction of camp, just in case the creature managed to get by his father. At least Mina would be safe… But Ganten quickly realized that it was useless as the creature once again opened his mouth, sending three balls of chakra in quick unison in the direction of Tenmar's group was running. There was no way they could dodge all three balls. Torn, Ganten prepared to leave his post, at the very least he may be able to block one ball with his body and the others may get lucky-

A low growl erupted from Naruto as he spun quickly towards the balls, using his tails to create a whirlwind that effectively canceled out the balls' movement. "I don't think so." Naruto's fully-transformed voice growled out as the gigantic fox moved again towards his opponent, his prey. "You wanna touch them, you go through ME first."

"Kya ha ha!" Shukaku laughed in seeming delight as he glared at Naruto. "Once I'm through with you, I'll have them begging to join you!"

"Big words for a SEALED man, don'cha think?" Naruto replied, attempting to bait the monster into rage. Anything to get his attention a little more fully on him so that he could provide an opening. "What's it like in that kid's body? It must be annoying that a CHILD is able to hold ya in, isn't it? A real blow to the ego, I'd imagine…"

Naruto's words seemed to be working as the creature shrieked, sending three more balls directly for him. Naruto sprang into the air, spinning gracefully out of their way, but Ganten was not so lucky. Although all three balls impacted the ground around where his father had been standing, the after-effect wind was strong enough to knock him off his feet and send him tumbling towards the forest floor. Acting as quickly as he could, Ganten tore his claws into the tree next to him, sliding painfully down until he managed to stop his fall. Once stopped, it was easy enough for him to jump back towards the branch he'd been resting on before, annoyed at himself for not expecting the repercussions and for missing what was most likely one of the best chances to attack that he would get.

Naruto ignored the fact that his son had missed the chance to attack. He knew it would be hard even for the sharp Ganten to prepare himself perfectly, especially considering how brief the openings would be. He couldn't let Shukaku use his wind-chakra ball attack again. It would be too difficult for Ganten to fight the immense pressure of the wind caused by the ball and even more upsetting to Naruto was the thought that Ganten would get hit by the ball inadvertently. Luckily, Shukaku didn't seem to realize that Ganten was still there; that took away the ability for him to cripple Naruto's movements by targeting the boy.

With a growl, Naruto dashed forward, teeth clamping more firmly on his opponent's neck this time, forcing his head to face upwards. With a growl, he also dug his claws into the creature and allowed his massive tails to snake out and whip against whatever parts of his body they could reach. This was the best he would be able to do for Ganten, managing to effectively hold back Shukaku's breath ball, and pin his arms to at least a certain extent.

Shukaku howled in frustration as he found himself unable to move his head and arms, and then his eyes widened as a white streak dashed from the trees towards him, landing on Naruto's massive body and jumping up towards his head, towards Gaara. "NOOO!" He howled, attempting to shake and claw his opponent into letting go,;if the white headed boy managed to reach Gaara, his fight would be over.

Ganten reached the slumbering redhead with a victorious feeling swelling inside him. Reaching back a clawed hand, Ganten proceeded to swing it full force across the other boy's face; claws tearing deep gashes in the boy's face. "Wake up, bastard! Wake up!" Ganten screamed, pulling back his hand and striking the boy again and then again once more for good measure.

Gaara's head nodded, eyes opening slowly and Shukaku screamed in rage as his control seeped away even as Gaara's returned. "You!" Gaara howled as he glared at Ganten.

Naruto tore his fangs from the sand beast's neck, trails of sand pouring down his mouth as he did so. "Good job, Ganten. Now get out of here, I got the rest under control." Turning his attention to Gaara, he smiled. "I just gotta drain the rest of your chakra and then…"

Gaara's eyes narrowed as he stared at the giant fox that he recognized (somehow) to be the man he'd been fighting. Why was he fighting so hard? Was it because he feared death? But then, if that were true, he wouldn't have fought Gaara at all, no, he was here for another reason. His eyes followed the white haired boy as he dashed into the forest and away from the fight… His son, the man was fighting this seriously for his son and… for his other companions. He returned his attention to the giant fox. It looked like the creature was smiling at him

"How much longer can you keep that form up, now that Shukaku's down?" He was saying, a slight wheeze in his voice. After a moment, Gaara realized he was chuckling. "'Cause I got a lot more chakra where this came from."

Once those words were said, Gaara felt an immense exhaustion fill his being, he could feel his form beginning to slip as his chakra drained quickly from his body. He was running on his last legs. He had to win now or he would die at this man's hands. A shiver ran though him as he realized that as it was now, he didn't even have the energy to put himself into forced sleep and his opponent seemed to still be so strong. With an annoyed growl at his own lack of power Gaara allowed his form to fall, but bringing up his sand barrier again. He closed his eyes as the sand wrapped around him like a cocoon. He would have to buy time until he could regain some of his lost chakra. And then, without warning he felt his shield drop, and his eyes flashed open as he realized that not even his legs could withhold his weight any longer; he was completely drained. Listening intently, he heard his opponent shrink back to his normal size and then shuffle around in some bushes. When the blond man appeared before him, pulling his pants securely around his waist he smiled slightly as he leaned over Gaara.

"Don't forget our promise." Naruto reminded, grabbing the boy's arms and pulling him over his shoulder as he trotted back towards camp. "Your life now belongs to me."

:BREAK:

OK, so NOW, what did you think…?

A few brief notes… I had spring break last week and I went to an aquarium. The only aquarium in the WORLD that has a great white shark in captivity (anyone know which aquarium it is? Guess right and you'll get a mental cookie). Anyway, I normally think sharks are really not cute (bordering on ugly in fact), but THIS shark was adorable, which made me realize that I have an unnatural fixation on deadly creatures, and THAT explains why I had to not only introduce Gaara, but introduce Gaara BEFORE he get smacked good by Naruto… Just thought that was interesting filler, but I could have been wrong (I often am on these issues).

Back to business in general, I got some more questions this week, so I'm gonna answer them now.

Tryster asks: Hey, is Gaara gonna freak out or something when he sees that Naruto is grown up? (wait, Naruto is 'grown up' , right?)

My Response: Welllll… first off, YES, Naruto is all grown up (they get old SO FAST nowadays) But as to Gaara freaking out, well, if you remember correctly I kind of hinted at the chuunin exams in Embrace, but I never really got there so technically Gaara hasn't really met Naruto yet, so he couldn't really be surprised, I think.

QianYun (my beta, yay!) asks: although he (Gaara) was there, there still wasn't that much of a focus on him, was that done on purpose?

My Response: Actually yes, that was for a reason. I'll get into Gaara's head a little later, I think.

Anyway, thanks to all who reviewed, I really appreciate it! Especially to those that replied to my question of who they liked most, as it WILL influence future chapters. It's not too late to add in your opinion, either, so please let me know which character you like best and which you want to know more about/see more of! Either you may review or email me at PsychicKing _at_ gmail _dot_ net (You know the drill, the italicized words should be symbols rather than actually spelled out, it's just ff _dot_ net won't let me enter e-mail addresses or webpage addresses).


	6. The Binding

OK, well, once again it's that time of the week. I LOVED writing this chapter, so I hope you all enjoy reading it. Despite what anyone may say, the style in which I wrote this chapter was heavily inspired by a friend of mine who refuses to read this story on the principle that he's male, so he'll never know his contribution… Anyway, be glad because this version is WAY better than the last one I had started… With that said, please enjoy the chapter and don't forget to review… er, if you wanna, that is.

:BREAK:

Exodus

Chapter 6

"Don't forget our promise…" The tall blond man said, lifting Gaara onto his shoulder to carry him like a fallen animal back to his camp, "Your life now belongs to me."

Gaara closed his eyes in reply, wishing for sleep. It wasn't like he would be able to move any time soon, anyway, and he expected he would be dead long before even his own quick-healing body reached the point where he'd be able do anything. Right now he was so drained that he couldn't even form the most basic of sand shields; struggling was futile.

Waves of exhaustion flowed over him and Gaara found himself wondering exactly why he was still alive. Was his blond captor planning on taking him back to his companions to kill him in front of them? It seemed possible; these were animal-people after all. Maybe they devoured their enemies alive after defeating them, and this man, the one that had defeated him, was bringing him back for his family.

"Father…" The small white haired one was talking. "What do you want with him? Why not just leave him for his companions?"

"I can't leave him alone…" came the soft reply. Gaara felt a large warm hand ruffle his hair gently as the deep, almost compassionate voice continued. "Ganten… I want to adopt him."

Gaara's eyes flashed open as the man spoke, but neither his captor nor the white haired boy paid him any heed as they continued back towards their camp. What the hell was the man talking about, adopt him? He was… he just tried to kill their whole family, all of their friends and this man was throwing around words like adoption. What kind of a man was he?

The other boy, the man's son, seemed to have reservations as well, as the next words out of his mouth were, "ADOPT HIM? Are you insane? Daddy, this guy tried to kill all of us. On top of that he's got some crazy alter ego that he can't control, so even if he DOES follow your agreement - an' I'm not saying I think he will - there's still the problem of trying to stop that alter ego from destroying us all. You said yourself that if it gets past a certain point, you won't be able to stop the alter ego without killing this guy. What happens if he follows your agreement, we all start getting along and then the next thing you know, his alter ego breaks free and then you gotta kill him? Isn't that more cruel to all of us than just leaving him here? And why adopt? He's an adult, at least in his community. What the hell is he gonna want a new father for? Isn't that kinda condescending?"

For a moment, the large man's body shook and Gaara was certain he was angry. The shaking grew worse and then, to Gaara's amazement he realized that it was not rage, but laughter that was making the man shake. It was amazing. What kind of man laughed at having his authority undermined by his son? Even Gaara's father, who made it clear that he feared Gaara by sending a long stream of assassins after him, would not tolerate disrespect.

"Ganten…" The father said, still chuckling. His humor and affection for his son could be heard clearly in his tone. "You really worry too much. Do you really think that I would purposely place you and everyone else in danger? Or that I would force things on anybody?"

After a long moment the boy replied, "No. But then, what do you plan to do?"

"First things first," The blond replied. "We'll get back to camp and take care of everyone's injuries. As for what we're gonna do about him and his… alter ego," the man chuckled again, "I have a few ideas. We can worry about that later. For now, let's get back to camp and make sure everyone's OK."

:BREAK:

Back at camp Rin was doing less than OK. Things had been fine until the end of the fight. Moab was resting quietly in a makeshift crib Rin had created by strapping four of the packs together and throwing blankets in the center and Mina was sleeping as silently as death. Rin had taken advantage of the brief moment of peace he had after he knew the outcome of the fight with Gaara, the sand demon kid, to try once again to reach Mina's mind.

This was something he did whenever he got a moment to himself: in his current state it was the only thing he felt he could do for the Uzumaki family that was so kindly taking care of him. Unfortunately, thus far he'd had an impossible time of it. She was alive, at least her body was alive, but her mind… It seemed like she had retreated so deeply inside herself that not even Rin could find a trace of it. The only time he came even close to getting a reading off her was when she had a fit, and even then it was just feelings. Well, feeling, to be more exact- it was always the same thing. Fear. The only emotion the girl had felt since she went under almost a month ago. Other than that, there was nothing, it was like a blank slate. To be honest, that was why Rin almost felt relieved when she did have a fit. If there were emotions, there was a consciousness. The question was, how deeply was it buried?

With a grunt of self-loathing, Rin released Mina's hands, turning away from the girl. Nothing. Maybe he was too distracted? He was having an almost impossible time ignoring Ganten's mind as the boy raced back to him. It sounded as if the conversation he was having with his father was more than a little interesting, as well… With a determined shake of his head, Rin once again reached for Mina. This time he was going to get through. He would have good news for the family as they returned from their fight. It WOULD happen this time.

Once again closing his eyes, Rin grabbed onto Mina's head this time, allowing his mind to travel carefully into the void that was her consciousness. This was a trick that Rin's parents had taught him when he was young. Entering someone's mind was typically like entering someone's bed room, or reading their diary. With this technique, it was possible to do more than read a person's surface thoughts or emotions. With this, Rin could learn things about a person that the person themselves didn't remember. If it was stored in a person's brain, then it was accessible with this technique. It was too intimate to be used haphazardly and so, since the day of his family's death, Rin had not used it; not until he realized he may be of some help to Ganten's family.

Technically, Rin wasn't sure he would count his failed attempts at reaching Mina as actually performing the technique. Mina's mind was like a maze that was filled with dark shadows, but there was nothing tangible. With determination, Rin forced himself through the shadows. There had to be something more real somewhere, he just had to know where to look. If he could find her consciousness just once, then he should be able to reach her again.

Rin moved forward in Mina's mind, noticing that as he did so, an oppressive feeling welled up around him. The deeper he went, the greater the feeling grew until it was almost too much to handle, almost. Fighting off the feeling, Rin moved in even deeper. This was the first time he had even gotten a feeling from the girl and he was not about to back out now that he had something almost tangible to tell the others. A sound like a low wailing began to echo around the boy as he moved even further and it seemed like there was a faint light in the distance. Cautiously, Rin edged towards the light and the wailing got louder.

"M…Mina?" Rin called as he moved even closer, he could hear his own voice echoing back to him in response. "I'm a friend of your brothers, can you hear me? My name's Rin."

For a moment there was silence, even the wailing seemed to subside and Rin began to feel hope grow within him. She was responding to him! This was grea- And then, like a flash of pure energy, the light flashed towards Rin, enveloping his consciousness.

:BREAK:

With an insatiable grin, Tenmar leapt into camp, eager to see his father and youngest brother, body already feeling much relieved from the poison that had earlier been tormenting him. Of course, it had helped that Uzu had returned to his senses after the ominous presence of that boy had disappeared. His younger brother had, at that point, been all too willing to yank the daggers from Tenmar's back, giving the blond a certain amount of relief and allowing his body a chance to expel the poison as it healed. Tenmar's grin faded as his eyes fell on the campsite, in particular his sister's bedside.

"Oi!" Uzu hollered from behind him moments before his body, unable to stop quite as quickly as his brother had, rammed into Tenmar's back. "What the hell're you doing stopping like tha-" His words trailed off as he saw what his brother was staring at. In the center of the camp, near the fire, lied Mina, face twisted in silent rage, struggling desperately against the pair of frail hands that were clamped firmly around her head, hand's in the form of claws attacking the body of the one that was holding her viciously. Next to her, suffering the consecutive blows the girl was dishing out, sat Rin- face a pale mask of terror and pain.

For a moment both Tenmar and Uzu stared in silent horror at the scene. Tenmar was the first to come to his senses. "Uzu, help me pull them apart!"

Nodding quickly, the red head moved forward to wrap his arms around Rin's waist as Tenmar grabbed Mina by the forearms, stopping her silent attack on the dark-haired boy. With a grunt, Uzu pulled, using all the strength he had available to yank the smaller boy's arms off his sister. It took more energy than he would have dreamed possible to finally pry the two apart, and when they finally managed to do so, Uzu fell with a surprised 'oof' to the ground, Rin landing gently on top of him. Tenmar also fell headlong into Mina as the two finally separated.

"Oi, Rin! You alright?" Uzu called, gently turning the boy over so that he could see his face. One hand still holding Rin's wrists, he used his other to gently smack the boy's cheeks.

With a terrified gasp, Rin's eyes popped open, breath coming out in short gasps. "No, no, no!" He panted, desperately trying to escape Uzu's grasp.

In response, Uzu grabbed the boy more tightly, shaking him slightly. "Calm down, it's OK…" A wave of relief flooded over him as Rin's struggling stopped and the boy's breath seemed to begin evening out. Uzu shot Tenmar a questioning glance, to which the blond could only shake his head in confusion. At the very least, Mina seemed to have calmed down almost instantly.

After a moment of confusion, Rin rested his head carefully on the large chest of the man that held him, slowly allowing his mind to orient itself. Head still buried, he muttered, "Uzu…?"

"Yeah… it's me." The redhead replied, a slightly annoyed tinge to his voice. "What the hell were you doing?"

"I… I was trying to reach Mina's mind, I think and…" With a small shudder the boy clung onto Uzu's shirt, he felt hot tears pouring down his cheeks, but he couldn't quite remember why. "I saw a light and then…" With a sniff, the boy shook his head. "I don't remember anything after that, just this overwhelming feeling of fear and… pain." The last words came out in almost a whisper.

After a moment Uzu placed a sympathetic hand on the boy's head, attempting his best to provide comfort. He shot another questioning look to Tenmar, but his older brother did not seem to be paying attention, instead focusing on taking care of Mina. Uzu shrugged, still holding Rin when the thought struck him that if Ganten were to see this he would probably turn red in anger.

No sooner had the thought crossed Uzu's mind than did Naruto and Ganten burst quickly into camp. Uzu's eyes narrowed when he noticed his father carrying that redheaded sand bastard. "Oi, Daddy, what's HE here for?" It took him a moment to realize that drawing the attention of his younger brother to him was probably not the wisest thing to do considering the compromising situation in which he found himself.

Ganten rolled his eyes as his brother's words reached him. He opened his mouth preparing to explain that their father seemed to have lost a few screws during the battle, but when his eyes landed on Uzu holding a weeping Rin in his arms, his mind snapped. "What. Are. You. Doing. To. Rin?" Ganten demanded, storming up to his brother with a face that could only be described as more terrifying than any monster's.

Uzu opened his mouth to defend himself, but before he could get a word out, Rin pushed him away, suddenly throwing his arms around Ganten. The white haired boy's words froze in his mouth as Rin lay shaking against him, burying his face in the nape of Ganten's neck. Uzu raised his hands defensively as Ganten shot him another dark and quizzical look, "When Tenmar an' I got back, Rin was holding onto Mina's head and she was scratching him up pretty bad… When we got them apart, Rin was like this, that's all I know."

With a face that said clearly, 'If-I-find-you've-been-lying-I'll-kill-you', Ganten quietly led Rin to the corner of camp, helping him to settle down practically in his lap on the ground. /_It's kind of nice being clung to like this…/_ Ganten shook his head, clearing the thought away. That was besides that point. "Rin…" He whispered, pulling the boy slightly away from him. This was partially so he could look him in the eyes and partially to get him off Ganten's still bleeding shoulder. "Tell me what happened."

Wiping his hands across his face to clear away the tears Rin nodded, explaining to Ganten how he'd been hoping to reach Mina and the last thing he remembered. "Ganten, that emotion, that fear I tapped into… It's not normal. If that's what she's feeling constantly… You need to get her help, fast."

:BREAK:

"You want to WHAT?" The four boys were standing around Naruto with shocked faces as he told them his plan. It was late now, as before they could have this conversation each of them needed to be patched up a bit, even poor Rin, who seemed slightly shaken, like the day had been a little much for his nerves. Not that any of them were in much better condition, a war between hunger and exhaustion was waging through each of them, and a large amount of jealousy on all persons' parts was welling up against Moab, who was still sleeping soundly in his make-shift crib.

Naruto smiled at the shocked faces of his eldest two sons. Ganten and Rin looked less surprised, but both seemed to have opinions on the mater. Deciding to savor the moment before all of his children opened their mouths to flood him with complaints for his plan, Naruto once again repeated himself. "I said I want to take him in, adopt him. Look, he's had a hard life and I can't just turn my back on him. What do you guys say?"

"But, Father! What do you really know about him? Do you even know his name?" Tenmar protested, hands flailing wildly as he spoke.

Four pairs of eyes turned to Rin, who shrugged. "His name's Gaara. He's twelve years old and he's had something called Shukaku, a demon or person or something of the like, inside him his whole life. He's a little confused, because he heard you talking about adopting him earlier, while heading back towards camp. Besides that he's wondering how long it'll take us all to convince you that we should kill him and he wants to know when his companions, Temari and Kankurou (also his sister and brother respectively), will show up to take him away, if they show up at all. He's not convinced they'll have the guts to come here and try to take him, nor is he convinced they actually WANT him around anyway. Hum… other than that, he seems to be a little hungry, he likes the color red, he's wondering how Naruto could be 'Father' to us all (he seems to think I'm yours, too) and yet only look a few years older than Tenmar and he thinks your family is extremely odd… Oh, and it seems like he wants his sand back. The stuff that you left behind at the place you fought. OH! And now he's wondering how I know what he's thinking." The group spared a moment to turn and glance at Gaara, who laid, eyes still closed, a good distance away. Well out of hearing range for most people; most normal people at least.

"Well, I know he's got good ears." Naruto said, replying to Tenmar's earlier question. "Look, what I want to know is, will you trust me to make this work? If you can do that, I got everything else taken care of." He glanced at each of their faces as he spoke, eyes for once serious.

At once four heads nodded and Tenmar, taking the position of spokesperson said, "Father, we all have full confidence in you. If you say you can do it, there's no doubt in any of our minds that you will. Do as you please." Again the others nodded, each wondering why, when they had grown up independent from their parental figures, they were so willing to place so much trust in the man. It felt like he had powers beyond that of a normal person, like by simply wanting something to happen the world would curve to make it so.

Naruto grinned, moving towards where Gaara lay. "OK, then I'm gonna go cash in on that whatever-I-want promise he gave me." He waved at his children, calling back, almost as an after thought, "You all really should get to sleep. I'll take care of things here until morning!"

Tenmar shook his head, "The one that needs the sleep the most is you, Father." He muttered to Naruto's retreating back. There was no doubt that Naruto heard it, but he seemed to choose to ignore the comment as he settled down next to Gaara and began talking in a low voice.

Ganten looked to Rin, "Before I go to bed I'm just gonna get some more firewood, it's a cold night." /_YOU should sleep, though./_

Rin nodded, eyes following Ganten as the boy trudged into the woods to grab some logs suitable for the fire. If Ganten thought he was going to sleep before he got back, the white haired boy was sadly mistaken. With all the excitement of the night, Rin's concern for his companion's safety was too high for him to relax.

Uzu shook his head, looking between Rin and the spot in the woods that Ganten had disappeared to. /_For a smart guy, Ganten sure can be an idiot sometimes. Doesn't he realize Rin's not gonna rest until he's back? Guess there's nothing for it… I'm in slightly better shape than Ganten, anyway./_ "Oi! Ganten, you sleep, I'll collect the wood. I still got some adrenalin runnin' through my veins from the fight." The last part had been a lie, but Ganten seemed content with it as he came immediately back to camp, nodding at his brother in thanks. Uzu noticed with a trace of annoyance that as soon as Ganten was next to him, Rin seemed to have no problem going to sleep. _/How cold… And I did that for his sake, too…/_/

Ganten placed a hand on Rin's shoulders and noticed he was shaking like a leaf. "Are you cold?" He asked softly, leading his companion closer to the fire. /_We should sleep together; it'll be warmer./ _A mental picture filled the white haired boy's mind of himself holding Rin comfortably under a small pile of blankets. "Back-to-back. We should sleep back-to-back." He said quickly, attempting to cover the image over in his mind with a more appropriate one of them lying back-to-back.

Luckily for Ganten, Rin was not in a playful mood. The other boy simply nodded and began pulling out his bedding and laying it safely near the fire. He felt mortified at his own powerlessness that day and embarrassed at his own outbursts. He'd cried on Ganten's shoulder TWICE today, and even allowed Uzu to see him over-emotional. It was good that everyone seemed to have too much to worry about to notice his almost _womanly_ display of emotions, but that fact provided little comfort. He had never been this weak before, never thought of himself as sympathetic, yet here he was, crying for Mina's pain, terrified for Ganten and the others during their fights… It simply wasn't like him.

Ganten watched as Rin toiled away, putting out the bedding in a way that they could lay comfortably next to each other. The brown haired boy's bangs were covering his eyes, making it hard for Ganten to guess at his feelings. It was a trick Rin often used when he was embarrassed or upset, or even happy. The boy used it as a way to hide emotions that up to this point he'd had no need of. A small smile formed on Ganten's face as he watched Rin continue to toil at his efforts. _/He's kind of… cute when he's vulnerable, though./_ Rin's motions stopped cold as Ganten's thoughts seemed to reach him, causing the white haired boy to fight off a sudden feeling of terror. /_Shit, he heard that… I gotta apologize I gotta_-/ "Sorry." He said quickly before he could dig himself in any deeper.

Rin shook his head, pulling himself into the make-shift bed before looking up at Ganten through large brown eyes. Ganten had just spent a long day traveling, following that he'd gone off to fight a demon-child and even now his body was toiling away in an attempt to heal him at a rate that could only be considered non-human. How the hell did he get the energy to worry about anything, let alone Rin's feelings? Rin didn't even have the energy to argue, and he'd done far less throughout the day. "Are you coming?"

Large green eyes widened as Rin pulled his shirt off and flopped himself down, under the covers. _/OK, now he's TRYING to bait me…/_ Ganten decided with certainty, moving to the other side of the bedding and crawling into it after removing his own shirt. He wasn't certain which direction Rin was facing, the boy had done some turning under the covers after he'd pulled them over himself, so when he pulled the covers up to reveal Rin's back Ganten let out a slight sigh of relief. /_/Not that I necessarily object to holding him all night… NO! I mean, I don't know if I would object or not. I mean, he's nice and sometimes I think of it, but…/_ "Rin?" Ganten whispered, praying the other boy wasn't taking his thoughts the wrong way. "I'm sorry, I mean, I know this probably isn't the-" His words caught in his throat as he noticed the heavy breathing of the other boy. Rin had fallen asleep.

"Good night." Ganten whispered eventually, turning his back to his companion and trying desperately to ignore the light snickering coming from the area of camp that Tenmar was in. /_Oh well… at least Uzu didn't see that…_/ He could have sworn he heard Tenmar muttering something about him being cute between stifled laughter.

:BREAK:

"Do you understand what I'm telling you?" The tall blond man asked.

Gaara stared at him through unresponsive blue eyes. He felt no compulsion to make either a nodding or shaking motion, as from what he could tell, he was not really being given an option. The blond, he'd introduced himself as Naruto, had simply informed him of what was about to happen. It didn't matter. Gaara had promised to listen to this man, the man that defeated him. His opinions no longer mattered in this situation.

"I'm not saying it's gonna be forever." Naruto continued in a low tone, as if not to disturb those sleeping. "But I think it'll be better for you this way, too. Now, just stay as still as possible." After one last look at the boy's unflinching pale blue eyes, Naruto closed his own, hoping that his actions would be read as well-intentioned as he meant them to be. /_I wish he'd just show SOME kind of emotion… At least if he were struggling tooth and nail I'd know to toss him somewhere his companions could find him… Oh well, he's probably more confused right now than I am, so, here goes…_/

Naruto focused the chakra he'd managed to gather in the two or three hours since their fight to his hands, allowing it to flow slowly into the boy in a complicated pattern. Each small strand created patterns that formed a kind of spiritual phrase, each phrase combined to tell one very particular story. He could feel Gaara's body begin to move on its own accord, attempting to reject the foreign power searing through it in search of only one thing, but it was too late.

As the body tried viciously to break free from the bindings of Naruto's power, the blond spread his hands, exerting control over the small frame and forcing it to still. It was good that his new charge was still almost completely out of chakra, it would have been near impossible to do this while he was brimming with the stuff. As it was now, his body was almost like a living shell or marionette. Naruto simply needed to pull one of the chakra strings and the body would dance or laugh or cry or do any number of other things, whatever Naruto asked it to do. Whatever he TOLD it to do. The feeling was at once exhilarating and overwhelming.

Pushing those thoughts aside Naruto focused on the task before him, he was searching for a very specific type of energy and he needed to work quickly. He had no idea how long Gaara would be out of chakra or how long he could hold up with his own limited supply. As if to add to the looming threat, there was not a doubt in Naruto's mind that this boy's companions would be coming for him shortly. At the very least, if they lacked the capacity to love him as siblings, he was still too important a weapon to simply ALLOW a possible enemy to take him. It would have been smarter to have at least one of his children stay awake to aid him in case of danger, but they had all looked so tired. As their father, he couldn't bring himself to deny them of their sleep.

Thoughts of anything besides his current work were pushed aside as Naruto felt the tips of his chakra weavings touch against two very distinct centers of energy. One would be the boy, Gaara himself, the other Shukaku. Telling the difference between the two would be difficult as they had been entwined the entirety of Gaara's life, but it was not an impossible task. On the surface, each felt like the same person, each filled with anger, a desire to destroy. It would be their motivations and feelings that would distinguish the two.

Probing gently, and with a certain feeling of obtrusiveness, Naruto explored the two centers, disentangling them as he worked. When they were completely separated Naruto took an extra few moments. It was vital that he not mess up in this. Besides possibly destroying Gaara, there was the after effect that such a mistake would have on his family the following morning. As soon as Naruto was certain, his chakra snaked out, coiling around the energy and viciously yanking it towards the center of his chakra 'story'; effectively binding (at least for the time being) the energy that Naruto recognized as Shukaku.

With a gasp Naruto's eyes flew open, his task was done. Looking down, he saw that Gaara's eyes had closed, his breath was even. A small grin formed on his lips as he rose unsteadily to his feet, reaching for a blanket for their new 'guest'. His hands barely managed to clasp around his own roll of bedding before his legs gave out and he tumbled headlong towards the ground. A warm pair of arms wrapped around him, stopping his fall.

"Geeze, Daddy, you should really take better care of yourself…" Uzu muttered, laying his father out gently on the ground and tucking the blanket around him. "You've done too much today." As an after thought, Uzu wrapped his own blanket around their young guest. "Great, now what am I gonna do? It's frickin' cold…" His eyes landed on the lump that was Ganten and Rin and he grinned.

:BREAK:

The ship swayed softly in the darkness of the night, moving constantly towards its destination. Throughout the passenger cabin, hordes of people lay cramped together, one family practically on top of another. Shikamaru and Sasuke had managed to get a rather secluded corner, mostly because people took one look at Sasuke's bitter disposition and chose to move a safe distance away.

It seemed there was only one person unable to sleep after a long afternoon of travel. With a final glance at his sleeping companion, Sasuke threw his bedding off, standing and stepping gingerly to the ladder that led above deck. A beautiful night like this and he couldn't sleep… It had to be Naruto's fault. The closer they got to possibly meeting up with the blond, the more anxious Sasuke felt. With a sigh, he moved to stand at the edge of the ship, looking out over the dark water. /_He better be OK…_/ Sasuke thought, wrapping his arms around himself to block some of the chilled wind.

"Can't sleep?" A voice said near Sasuke's ear. The sudden, unexpected presence made the boy jump and he turned to glare at the intruder, who spread his hands out in an innocent gesture. "Sorry, sorry. I didn't mean to startle you." The man moved to stand comfortably next to Sasuke. "You're a ninja?" The man asked eyeing Sasuke's forehead protector.

The boy grimaced. He knew, logically, he should have taken the item off, it would do him no good on THIS mission, and, more likely than not, he was now labeled as a missing-nin, which made it even more dangerous for him to flaunt his origin. It was just… he found the idea of tossing the protector away more than a little painful. He still had full plans on returning to Konoha WITH Naruto. Rather than explaining his story to the man, Sasuke nodded.

"On a mission?" The man asked, then shook his head. "Oh, I probably shouldn't be asking, eh?" He said with a light self-mocking laugh. "As for me, my daughter and I are heading out over the Great Sea…" He stared at the water for a long moment and Sasuke thought that perhaps he had realized that his conversation was not appreciated. "I'm from another land originally," the man said when he spoke again, "I stepped onto this continent and immediately fell in love, but my wife died last year and… Everything I see reminds me of her. It's selfish to uproot my daughter, but I had to get away… There's nothing more painful than the loneliness of losing those you love…"

Sasuke stared at the man as he looked sadly over the expanse of darkness surrounding the ship, feeling, for a moment, an understanding and connection deeper than he would have liked. There were no words he could think of to express this, so he simply nodded, allowing his eyes to follow the man's gaze towards the nothingness.

"Argh…" The man exclaimed suddenly, turning to look at Sasuke. "I'm sorry, I'm sure you have better things to do than listen to the complaints of an old man like myself." He bowed, adding, "I should go back to my daughter."

Sasuke watched as the man walked away. Despite the fact that he had called himself an old man, he hardly looked as old as Kakashi-sensei had been, and he was certainly younger than Naruto, of course Naruto was a special circumstance as his oldest son almost looked older than he did. No sooner had the name 'Naruto' gone through Sasuke's mind than did his anxiousness return, accompanying it was the typical annoyance he felt whenever he was thinking about the blond. With a dissatisfied grunt he returned his glare to the water. It was obvious that he was not going to get any sleep tonight.

:BREAK:

So what did you think? Hurm, I tried to throw in some cute Ganten/Rin moments, but I was told that they might have been a little subtle, so I hope you all caught it.

Anyway, my characters that received the most 'we wanna know more about them' comments were clearly Ganten and Rin (not that a majority of people actually voiced a preference which leads me to believe that I am doing perfectly… heh heh heh). Ganten actually beat out Rin, but part of that is because RukaIayLomperGay voted for him twice (yes, I caught that, very tricky… ) and the other part, I think, is that people wanted to see Ganten as he develops in relation to Rin, right? (correct me if I'm wrong…)

Hooray for Shinigami11 who at least read both the latest issue of Shonen Jump AND my author's notes last time! Yay! At least one person reads my Author's Notes! Ahem… anyway, as promised, I'm mentally projecting to you a large chocolate chip cookie, which you may or may not receive and probably won't be able to eat and hopefully are not allergic to and… Perhaps you'd prefer a mental pat on the back instead?

As a side note, I did get a question last time, so here it goes;

izumi asks: Gaara never met Naruto here?

My response: Nope… Again, 'Cause I started Embrace before the exams and then totally skipped them they didn't have a chance to meet. I'm trying to remember if I had him lurking somewhere in Embrace or if I simply _meant_ to have him lurking somewhere and never quite got around to it… Ah well, either way, they've meet now, right? And that's the important thing, I think.

So, I'll end with just this one last question… M-python-girl, was this update quick enough to avoid and unnecessary deployment of the religious fanatics? I do hope so…


	7. Getting to Know You

Ahem… Well, sorry about the long wait. I know I suck… I really thought I'd get another chapter out before finals and papers got me too busy to think, but I kinda got sucked in, I'm really sorry! Just to warn you, finals are next week, so there may not be an update by that point. BUT! I'm not going out of town this summer, at least not right away, so (unlike last year, any of you who were reading Embrace at that time) there shouldn't be any trouble in getting chapters out once my semester ends (yay!). With that said, please enjoy the chapter!

Exodus

Chapter 07

With a groan Tenmar finally managed to pull his head out from under his blankets and stood, long-suffering sigh escaping his lips as he stretched. Unlike Uzu, who woke the morning after a battle feeling refreshed and energized, for Tenmar it was a pain. His body had worked all day yesterday traveling and fighting and then at night had it gotten the break it so sorely needed? NO! It had been forced to heal itself nonstop and now, most likely only an hour or so after his wounds were mostly healed he was waking up out of force of habit.

The habit in question was to be the first person awake so that he could analyze their situation, make sure they were safe from enemies and make breakfast. It was the latter of his morning routines that his brothers complained about. Although no one actually ever volunteered to make breakfast in his stead, not even dear, sweet Mina, it was well-known that Tenmar was the worst cook in the bunch, but he loved doing it. A fact made worse by the wonders of modern food technologies he'd found during their brief stay in Konoha. New spices and sweeteners, packaged dried food products, a plethora of different pots and pans and knives and mixers… It had all tickled his fancy and stoked his imagination, leaving him eager to cook every morning. The last few days he'd been beaten to the punch by his father, whom he had to admit, DID cook at least remedially better than he. But not today!

It was with no small amount of glee that Tenmar went about securing the camp and analyzing their current situation. He made a quick mental check of the area. It looked like Uzu had crawled into Ganten and Rin's bedding, THAT was going to cause problems when Ganten woke up… Also, Father was sleeping soundly on the far side of the fire, sprawled out like a kid on an over sized bed. And their new comer… Tenmar frowned slightly. Where was he? His bedding was empty, actually folded and placed near Naruto. His scent was cold; it had been a while since he left. Tenmar debated waking his father to tell him, but could not bring himself to do so. With a shake of his head Tenmar started his work; the boy would show up if he wanted to stay with them, if not it would do no good to force him.

He started with Mina, walking over to the girl; he could tell from this distance that she'd soiled herself. That was not unexpected, as they were force feeding her. Without any feeling of disgust Tenmar went about changing his sister's clothes. Her cot, which she was left to sleep both day and night, was made of an easily cleaned plastic, so after changing her clothes Tenmar leaned her against a tree and gently and quietly wiped the mess. He talked gently to her as he worked.

"How are you today, Mini-Mina?" That was the pet name his mother gave her. "We all had a big scare last night, but Father took care of it. He's really amazing, you know?" He paused a second as if waiting for her to reply, when she didn't he sighed again and continued on in his work. "I don't know how we got along without him… I was a terrible substitute for a father. I don't know what Father's getting us into now. That boy he wants to take in… I don't understand why. Not that I have a problem with it, mind you. If that's what Father wants than I don't care, but he's gonna be real sad when he sees that the kid's gone…"

Tenmar sighed as the girl remained unresponsive. The more time passed with her like this, the less alive he felt, like she was slipping slowly away from her body never to return. She been having less and less fits, tonight might have been the first since their departure that she hadn't woken the whole camp with her shrieks. It was good that everyone got their much needed sleep, but Tenmar was frightened by her silence…

With a suddenly far less happy hear then he'd had only moment before, Tenmar swooped his sister into his arms about to lay her back onto her cot. He paused for a moment, eyes lingering on her pale face. In an instant he felt the sorrow welling up in himself again and he buried his face into her hair, allowing warm tears to fall. "Come back to us, Mina… Come back," he whispered, voice shaking slightly, "We don't care what you've been hiding, we don't care about what happened with Kentaar, we just want you back." He paused for a moment, sobs racking his body, with a shuddering sigh he continued, "I'm sorry… Mina… I'm so sorry… I didn't realize you were carrying such a huge burden… Please…" He held her that way for a long time, when his tears subsided he sighed, laying her back down. He was glad that everyone else in the camp was asleep; it would have been embarrassing to be seen-

His eyes widened as they caught on a pair of pale blue eyes gazing at him curiously. Gaara had come back sometime while he'd been taking care of Mina… WHEN exactly? Tenmar stared at the boy, eyes wide in surprise and face flushing slightly with embarrassment. "G-good morning…" Tenmar stuttered hesitantly, scratching the back of his head in slight embarrassment. _/What this boy must think of us…/_

Gaara nodded in response, eyes cold and unreadable.

Tenmar took that as a sign to continue babbling, covering Mina up as he did so he added, "I was just taking care of my sister, Mina. She's… asleep right now and has been for quite some time now. My name is Tenmar, your Gaara, right?" The boy continued to stare at him and just when Tenmar was going to give up on receiving a response the boy nodded briefly. With an encouraged smile Tenmar replied, "Well, I was just about to start breakfast, but it looks like the fire's almost dead. Will you get firewood while I take care of Moab and get breakfast going?" Tenmar gestured towards the baby and the bag that held the group's food as he spoke. Once again the boy nodded in response, walking stoically out towards the woods.

"Not much of a conversationalist, is he?" Tenmar muttered, but not disagreeably. Perhaps they needed someone quiet, considering how noisy their family could be. He picked up Moab, who squirmed immediately as the warm hands wrapped around him. "And a good morning to you…" He cooed, walking towards a quiet end of the fire to start on the food. Sometime during the preparations Gaara returned with the fire wood and a little while after that Naruto also awoke, bright eyed and bushy tailed as Uzu would no doubt be once he woke up.

:BREAK:

Ganten awoke with the warm feeling of another body wrapped in his arms and smiled slightly. It was a pretty nice feeling… He must have rolled over in his sleep and grabbed hold of Rin. He shrugged mentally as he lay there for just a bit longer. There was also a warm arm around his waist, so it wasn't like Rin could solely blame Ganten for the action, right?

As the haze of sleepiness wore off, Ganten began to notice things about his companion, things he'd never realized before. For one, Rin's shoulders were wider than he thought. He'd always figured they had similar builds, but the man in his arms was almost the size of Tenmar. He was harrier than Ganten had been expecting, as well. He could have sworn the other boy had smooth, almost hairless skin. His smell was off too; it was a more wild smell, the tinge of animal blood was thick in his air. It was almost like he'd turned into…

Ganten's eyes flashed open and he rocketed away from his bedding, landing with a confused thud in the nearby dirt. His eyes hardened as a sleeping Uzu rolled away from the sudden chill left by Ganten's departure, rolling towards the warmth of the person on his other side. Soft chuckling reached his ears and Ganten's eyes shot towards the other side of camp where Tenmar and his father were enjoying breakfast with his father's new 'project'.

With a low growl Ganten prepared to serve a righteous elbow of justice towards this elder brother's face for not only crawling into his bed but also groping onto his Rin, but he was stopped by his father's gentle voice, "Let them sleep a bit longer, eh?"

With a begrudging nod Ganten trudged towards the not-sleeping members of the family and breakfast. "Not saying I'm not gonna make 'em hurt, but I can wait…" He muttered grumpily.

Naruto grinned. He'd noticed in their all too brief time together that Ganten often woke up a little short-tempered, but rarely did he complain. He wrapped an arm around his youngest son when he got closer, yanking him to stand in front of Gaara. "I don't think you've officially been introduced."

"Close enough." Ganten grumbled, eyeing Gaara darkly as he grabbed a bowl and filled it with whatever breakfast-substance gruel Tenmar had obviously thrown together. "Sure got acquainted with your sand." He continued, stumbling away from the group to a corner in which he could effectively glare at Uzu and Rin, who were still sleeping peacefully.

Gaara, for his part, seemed unfazed by the shortness of temper that was Ganten in the morning. Actually, he seemed rather unfazed by all manner of things today, including Naruto and Tenmar's attempts at drawing him into conversation. Despite that, the boy seemed less angry today and more curious.

Looking between his youngest son and Gaara, who had as of yet refused to offer any form of communication, Naruto settled back down to eat. When Naruto woke up not only was Gaara already awake, but he had also obviously gone somewhere as he now carried on his back a large sand-gourd that reeked of blood, just as his sand had during their battle, making Naruto think the boy must have gone to retrieve it. But he'd come back. That was interesting.

Honestly, when Naruto had told Ganten his desire to 'adopt' Gaara, he'd only been partially serious. Like Ganten had pointed out, Gaara was twelve and a full ninja. There was no way he needed to be babied, but Naruto couldn't help himself from wanting to provide a bit of the parental care the boy had obviously been deprived of. Perhaps it was partially selfish. Pouring some amount of affection into Gaara would be like making amends for the affection Naruto himself missed out on as a child; their stories were eerily similar. And it could help him keep his mind off Sasu- er… things.

"By the way, how are you feeling today, Father?"

Tenmar's sudden question broke Naruto's train of thoughts, causing the man to stare blankly at him for a moment before pasting a huge grin on his face. "Great!" He stretched a bit, as if to accentuate this point. "Nothin' like a good night's sleep to get you feeling' all ship-shape in the morning!" After a moment he added, "'Course, we could break camp now, but I figured we should wait until Gaara's companions show up so we can talk some things out. Anyway, you all needed your sleep. Even more so now that Ganten's gonna kill Uzu when he wakes up."

Tenmar nodded, then, with a chuckle replied, "Well, it's Ganten's own fault. He didn't set clear boundaries. If he doesn't want Uzu to mess with Rin he needs to make a claim on him!" He'd said that loud enough for the sulking Ganten to hear his words, dropping his voice he added, "Not that Uzu really cares about Rin like that, mind of course. He just likes seeing Ganten's hackles raise." Tenmar heaved a long sigh as he glanced at Rin's eyes, ever focused on the spot Uzu lay cuddled with Rin. "I have to admit, he really is cute like this…"

"Isn't he?" Naruto agreed, allowing his eyes to follow Tenmar's for a moment before returning his gaze towards Gaara. Prodding Gaara gently with an elbow he demanded, "Isn't he?"

Gaara allowed his eyes to travel towards the white haired boy. Cute was not a term he'd ever really focused on before, at least not since that day. He certainly wouldn't have considered the white haired boy cute, even when he was young. So, rather than responding he stared blankly at the blonde, whose elbow was still jabbing him lightly in the ribs.

"You must not have slept very well last night." Naruto stated dropping his elbow from the boy's ribs as it became obvious that he would not respond to any questions involving the word 'cute'. "You were up before Tenmar today."

After a long moment Gaara nodded. "I'm not used to it."

There was a surprised moment as both Tenmar and Naruto stared in shock at Gaara. Neither had heard him speak since the battle, and both were beginning to wonder if he was incapable unless agitated. Naruto was the first to recover, making an unsuccessful attempt at covering his delight he nodded, face beaming. "Makes sense. You haven't really been able to sleep much throughout your life, right?"

Gaara stared at him, questions rising in his mind. The most prominent was how this man could be so certain, despite everything he saw yesterday, that Temari and Kankurou would actually come back for him? He was certain they wouldn't, preferring to simply assume he was dead, but the way he viewed the world had changed drastically in the last eight or so hours and he had a feeling that even his siblings could possibly surprise him.

:BREAK:

Rin woke due to a mixture of two different elements. The first was a pair of large arms wrapped around him in a fierce embrace, gently pulling his body to and fro in the locale that was his bedding. The other was a very sharp, very annoyed sound of a voice practically screaming out his name. After taking a moment to orient himself, a moment made longer by the constant shakings of whoever was clutching into him, Rin realized that he was being held by Uzu. The screaming was mental and it was all coming from Ganten, although as to the boy's location at the moment, that was a mystery. All Rin was certain about was that Uzu was still sleeping and in his dream it was not Rin he was holding onto.

Rin sighed as once again Ganten began mentally screaming out for him. With a small amount of effort and a good amount of strategic movements Rin managed to free himself from Uzu's hold while succeeding in not waking him up. With a satisfied grin he stood, grabbing his shirt from the ground where he'd discarded it before going to bed. His grin waned slightly as Ganten's thought became more annoyed.

_/WHAT were you doing like that? How long have you been awake? You didn't… You didn't actually LIKE that, did you/_

Rin tactfully decided to avoid direct confrontation with Ganten until the boy had a chance to calm down, opting instead to join the group around the fire. Although he'd been traveling with them for only a short amount of time, Rin was already able to tell from the hardly edible scents that were wafting from the pot over the stove that Tenmar must have cooked this morning. None the less, food was food. "Good morning."

"Morning." Tenmar replied, small smile on his face as he glanced between Rin and Ganten. He found it endlessly amusing that Ganten stubbornly refused to join them at the fire now that Rin was awake. Obviously he wanted Rin to join HIM, not the other way around.

Catching Tenmar's eye Rin nodded, rolling his own eyes in the direction of Ganten. He carefully mouthed the words, 'Bad mood.'

Tenmar nodded, thinking, _/You don't have to read minds to know THAT. It's all because of Uzu, though./_

Rin shrugged in response, shaking his head from side to side as if to indicate that he also was willing to take partial blame for the situation. He may have been asleep, but he would have woken up if he were uncomfortable.

Naruto grinned as he watched the two men communicate without words. Tenmar obviously adapted to things well, it only took him a few days to get used to talking to Rin mentally and to pick up on Rin's facial expressions and hand gestures. Ganten also had gotten used to Rin's powers, however, Naruto could tell his youngest son was always attempting to find a way around them; that was just the kind of person Ganten was. Uzu on the other hand was much more like Naruto. Prone to speak his mind directly, mind reading powers didn't have much use towards him. Of course for someone like Gaara, such powers would provide a wealth of information. "Gaara, have you thought about my proposition last night? Like I said last night, I can't guarantee that the binding will last for more than a year, possibly less. I know I didn't give you much of a choice in the binding, but I will give you a choice in this. I think it would be best for you to come with us. We are headed to someone that should be able to help you learn to control Shukaku. If you want nothing to do with it, than by all means, leave with your brother and sister when they arrive. But be aware, the only way that road will lead you is to more anger and hate; if we meet again, don't expect me to look the other way as I did last night.""

The redhead turned his pale blue eyes towards Naruto and stared at him for a long moment. "I'll do as you say." He replied at length.

Naruto blinked once, not expecting the boy to be so agreeable. "But what do you WANT?" He asked, perturbed when it became obvious that his question was going to be ignored. "You have to want SOMETHING. Everyone wants something."

"Naruto…" Rin broke into the blonde's conversation, saving Gaara the trouble of spelling out his desires. "He's given you his answer. What he WANTS is to travel with us."

"Aha!" Naruto called out jumping to his feet as if he had just figured out the answer to an ancient riddle. "I see. Why didn't you just SAY that?"

"He feels he DID," Rin replied for the red head. After a moment he sighed, turning towards Gaara. "Yes… I'm Rin."

Naruto stared at the brown haired boy, wondering momentarily if he had missed something. Then he remembered who Rin was; of course he had missed something. He had probably responded to one of Gaara's thoughts. Glancing at Gaara, it was obvious that he appreciated Rin's talents more than the rest of the group. Rin sat down next to the boy and so began an almost completely one-sided sounding conversation. Naruto grinned, moving to sit next to Tenmar and Moab in order to give the boys some privacy. Rin was probably best suited to understand Gaara in this situation, and for reasons beyond that of his mind reading abilities.

:BREAK:

Rin sat next to Gaara, talking to the boy until his throat felt dry. The other boy had a lot of questions, a lot of issues; Rin was amazed how deep his thoughts ran, how different the boy was from most other people he had met. It was obvious that in all of Gaara's twelve years, last night was the first time he'd been shown anything resembling kindness. He was fascinated by Naruto, the others, too, but Naruto specifically. Not that Rin was surprised. Gaara's actions and feelings towards Naruto were a lot like his own towards Ganten, although not as complicated or intense.

In many ways the two of them were very alike. Both had lived lives in which they felt unwanted, both had developed a deep hatred for the inhumanity of mankind and both had been forced to realize that perhaps mankind wasn't as bad as they thought by people who were just as outcast as they were. He found himself enjoying the companionship of Gaara and at the same time desiring to help ease the boy's transition as a new member of the Naruto-group.

"No, he's not usually like that." Rin replied quietly to Gaara's mental questions about Uzu. "He just looses control when he fights; they all do at points, except maybe Naruto. He's kind of always in a half animalistic state and half in a human state. The others have more made themselves alternate personalities (kind of) for their animal instincts, although Uzu's is much closer to the surface than Tenmar or Ganten's. I'm not sure about Mina."

The mention of Ganten's name had Rin wincing, as his mind automatically searched the boy's out. He was still pissed. Actually it seemed he'd gotten angrier as time progressed. Rin turned to stare at him, he was still glaring at Uzu, but after a moment he turned angry eyes to stare at Rin. He didn't like how Rin was ignoring him, he didn't like how Rin was sitting close to Gaara, he didn't like how Rin had allowed Uzu to hold him last night, but most of all he didn't like how he was acting about it.

Rin blushed, glancing down at the fire as Ganten's glare softened and he apologized mentally. Ganten wasn't the type of person to admit he was wrong often, in fact, this might be a first. Of course, he was still pissed at Uzu, to be honest, Rin was a little perturbed as well. He wasn't sure why, but it had felt like the red head disturbed something very… private.

"Rin." Naruto's teasing voice broke into his thoughts, causing Rin to look up in surprise. "Why don't you just go talk to him, ne?" He glanced pointedly at Ganten. "I'll take over talking to this guy." Naruto grinned at Gaara, waving dismissively at Rin.

Rin glanced in surprise at the forgotten Gaara, who was staring at him, slightly annoyed at being ignored, but not minding the switch over to Naruto. He looked down, bowing his head slightly, "Sorry." Rin said quickly before rising to his feet and moving to stand next to Ganten.

Behind him he could hear Naruto saying in a loud, happy tone, "Don't worry about him. He gets that way." Lowering his voice, but not enough to not be heard he added, "Especially when it has to do with Ganten."

Rin stood for a moment next to Ganten, who looked up to stare at him. "Can I sit down?"

/_Of course./_ Ganten's thoughts replied automatically. He didn't voice the thought, but patted the ground next to him, indicating where would be best for Rin to sit.

Rin smiled, lowering himself to the ground. They sat side by side in companionable silence for a while. Neither thought about anything in particular, each enjoying the others presence.

:BREAK:

Naruto sat next to Gaara and talked. And talked… and talked. The redhead was about dizzy from all the talking the blonde did, but it was nice. Mostly the man told Gaara about his childhood, or, the childhood he'd had while sealed, at least. Raised in the leaf village as a ninja, outcast and unwanted, it was very familiar; the differences lie in the way the blonde took everything. He talked of becoming hokage in a tone that left Gaara certain that he planned on returning to claim the title one day. He had a genuine love for the people that lived in that village, even those that shunned him.

"I probably would have stayed there forever with Sasuke and Sakura-chan." Naruto finished, wistful look across his face.

"I'm sorry, Father…" Tenmar broken in quietly, looking down at the fire. The look of sorrow and regret that crossed his did not go unnoticed.

"Oi, oi! Don't be like that! I'm glad you came for me! I'd regret missing your lives far more than I regret leaving that place! You're my children." Naruto said quickly, replacing his wistful expression with a smile quickly.

Gaara stared at the blonde. For a moment, between the wistful look and the smile, it seemed like he had seen the true nature of the man. A sudden, strange, yet recognizable look had been in his eyes, but it passed quickly as he moved to cheer up his son. Gaara wasn't sure why, but beyond his promise from the fight he felt a drawing to the blonde next to him. Even if Naruto hadn't asked, even if he'd told him not to, Gaara had the feeling that he would have wanted to go with the man, that he would follow him.

Gaara's thoughts were interrupted when the mind-reader jumped from his position next to the white hared boy, calling out sharply, "Naruto!"

The blonde man nodded, as if both were in tune to a secret code that the others seemed to lack comprehension of. Naruto turned to Gaara. "It would seem that your brother and sister have finally decided to come for you."

:BREAK:

"Shush… He'll wake up." A low voice whispered, effectively setting into motion the thing it had been attempting to avoid.

Shikamaru woke to the sounds of hushed voices and he did not move. There were five of them, maybe a sixth keeping look out. He must have slept longer than he'd intended and now he was being targeted. He wasn't sure what the men were after exactly, perhaps they had heard of the fortune he'd paid for transport across the bay, or maybe it was something more carnal than that. The thought left him feeling slightly disgusted and he was slightly relieved when the hands of the intruders groped at their belongings rather than his body.

/_What's Sasuke doing/_ Shikamaru wondered, opening one eye a crack to try and glance at the other boy. He couldn't stop himself from letting out a small huff when he saw the empty bedding of the other boy. He wasn't even there. From his slightly open eyelid Shikamaru could tell that he was the only person still below deck besides his assailants, the ship must have stopped somewhere as it wasn't rocking as bad as it had been the day before.

For a moment he wondered blankly if they had reached Port Town and Sasuke had decided to attempt to loose him the new city. With an hours head tart he would be almost impossible to catch up to. A feeling of dread briefly wavered through him as Shikamaru wondered why he hadn't bothered to set up any precautions to warn him of Sasuke's leaving before he went to bed last night. /No… Port Town is still at least half a days travel away, we've just stopped at an island on the way. Sasuke wouldn't leave, I still have all of the money./ Shikamaru could still feel the heavy pouch of cash, coin and valuables pressed against his chest. It would only be a matter of time before the thieves realized that the money would be on his person. Realizing this, with a definitive air Shikamaru sat up, yawning and stretching.

"He's awake!" One of the voices muttered.

"Grab him quickly. We can kill 'em and dump his body in the ocean. No one'll notice he's gone." Another replied.

Shikamaru glanced at the men as they moved quickly towards him. They really were fools to attack a ninja, especially THIS ninja in such a dark room. The sun's light may have spread across the world above deck, but below was filled with shadow; this was his world. Well, to be fair to the men, she wasn't wearing his ninja gear. On the outside he looked like any other young boy. Shikamaru clasped his hands together, quickly forming the seals to bind the men.

"Arrag-" One of the assailants cut off mid attack scream, realizing that his body was suddenly immobile. The others stared at each other in confusion and surprise.

"What magic is this?"

"Idiot, it's no magic. The boy's a ninja!"

"A ninja!" This voice sounded filled with fear. "Oh, by the gods! We didn't mean anything by it, please! I have a wife and child!"

"Shut up, you fool!" The ringleader replied, staring at Shikamaru with frightened, yet determined eyes.

"Good, you realize the position your in." Shikamaru said softly. He'd used a form of jutsu to immobilize the men, but he wasn't sure what to do with them next. He could force them up the stairs, but then the sun would free them from their binding. He could call for help, but what if no one remained above cabin? He was certain he could release them and beat them easily in a fight, but that would be bothersome as there were so many of them.

"Oi! You still sleeping?" Sasuke's voice never sounded so sweet. Shikamaru grinned as the boy appeared in the doorway, and began to limb down the stairs. His eyes widened as he noticed the six extra occupants of the room. "I didn't know you had company."

"They're after the money, I think. Probably working with the captain, don't know how else they would have found out about it." Shikamaru explained, adding, "Do you think you could tie them up, this is getting troublesome."

Sasuke nodded, tying the men up with a long piece of rope.

Shikamaru sagged gratefully as the men were bound and he was able to drop the jutsu. That was far too much work in the morning. "What are we gonna do with them? We could kill 'em and dump their bodies." He added, remembering that had been their plan for him.

Sasuke shrugged, assuming that Shikamaru's suggestion had not been serious. "Hand them into the local authorities?"

"If we do that, they'll tell on the captain…" Shikamaru said slowly. "That means we'd haveta wait another day or two for a new ship to come across. In that kind of time span we may miss Naru- our target." He finished changing his wording. If they let these men go it was better not to leave them with the name of their contact.

"Then let's make sure they can't tell… yet." Sasuke replied, cracking his knuckles with a dark smile on his face.

The man that claimed having a wife and daughter screamed as Sasuke approached him. "Oh, gods, NO-"

:BREAK:

Well, did you like it? I decided it was high time for Sasuke and Shika to get some action going on, and since they were obviously loaded, thieves (bumbling ones, but thieves nonetheless) were the best route for me (I think). As for what gonna happen with Gaara and his sibs, well, I donno. Anyway, I'm gonna get back to studying, but please review this chapter (I get encouraged to write the next one much quicker when I get reviews)!

Oh, here's a quote, for you all. "Whatever you are, be a good one." -Abraham Lincoln. (this quote is what inspired me to neglect my writing in order to study… gomen).


	8. Deals Made

Well, hello all! As I promised, a chapter this week and now with finals finally done the updates should resume to a more normal pace (let's all hope at least). Thanks for all of your well-wishes for my finals; I think, overall, I did well (thank God). Hum… About this chapter, I got a few comments that Naruto seems out of character but I'm not sure what to do, if suddenly going from a twelve year old little boy to an undisclosed aged man with children and a dead wife doesn't change a personality than I don't know what will. I'm trying to leave as much of the boy in as possible (sometimes I do it better than others) but keep in mind that he really isn't completely the same person anymore. If you can keep that in mind I promise to double check myself before blindly declaring him to be close enough to in-character. Thanks for the warnings. That said, enjoy the chapter!

:BREAK:

Exodus

Chapter 08

Ganten moved towards the packs with their supplies as the two intruders, Gaara's siblings, approached. He noticed that Tenmar had already moved with Moab to stand defensively next to Mina, but in a nonchalant way. Rin was standing with Naruto and Gaara, a position that would put the boy in danger if they decided to attack, but a good place for him nonetheless as his abilities would come in handy. Anyways, Ganten trusted Naruto to protect him if there was a need. He scanned the camp quickly, making sure that everything of value was guarded. His eyes landed on Uzu, still slumbering unawares, blissfully curled around his blanket. Ganten snorted, yes, everything of VALUE was protected.

Naruto's mouth opened and Ganten's attention was drawn to him immediately; this was not a side of his father he'd seen before, and perhaps not a side he would see again. "Good morning." A voice that was clearly Naruto's and yet so unlike him - filled with none of the warmth or happiness it usually held - called out. "I would ask what you're doing in my camp, but I see no reason to play games. Let me tell you first, we already know of your ambush; sending a puppet to masquerade as yourself is very clever, but it will do you no good. Don't insult me."

Ganten's eyes widened, realizing that his father had said that partly for his benefit. He hadn't noticed until moments ago, but as his father indicated, there was a presence behind him. It had approached at the same time as the others and so had managed to confuse his nose. Amazing. Ganten turned his head to glare into the forest, eyes quickly catching onto Gaara's brother now that he knew he was there. He stared at the man for a long moment before Kankurou shrugged, jumping to the ground and walking in a purposefully casual manner towards his sister.

"Can't blame a guy for trying. We're obviously not gonna win in a power war." Kankurou said as he moved to stand next to Temari. "We just want what we came for. Let Gaara go."

"I have no intention of allowing you to take Gaara." He held up his hands as both Temari and Kankurou's mouths opened in complaint. "This is according to his will; I would not take him otherwise." He glanced briefly at Rin, who nodded and then turned his attention to Gaara. "I'll give you a few moments to speak with them before we leave." Naruto turned, walking back towards the fire.

"Regardless of what you say, he's still OUR brother! Do you think we'll just let you ta-" Tenmar fell silent as Naruto spun around to face her again.

"Don't talk to me about your 'family bonds'!" Naruto spat out. Ganten was taken back; he'd never seen his father so angry. He realized the tone of his voice now; it wasn't because he was taking on a role as a firm leader, it was because he was holding in his rage. He truly hated these people. "What kind of family doesn't show love to a young child? What kind of family would curse him to an existence like this? I'm giving you a chance to talk to your brother, and only because he requested it. Now go do your talking in the woods, I don't want to see you again."

Ganten's eye were wide as both Naruto and Rin walked back towards the center of camp and he found himself wondering if he would ever see his cheerful, smiling father again. He may be an idiot at times, but that was how he was best. Not all anger and seriousness as he was now. Maybe he'd snapped… Ganten looked up at Tenmar to see his own feelings reflected in his older brother's face. Worry, fear.

"Father…" Tenmar asked slowly, walking away from his post beside Mina. "Are you alright?"

For a long moment Naruto didn't answer, his eyes focused on the fire, hands folded together. Then he turned his eyes up towards Tenmar, and in a voice far more Naruto-like, replied. "Argh! People like that just piss me off, you know?"

Tenmar grinned, running a hand through his short pony-tail. "I know… They piss me off, too." Father was back.

Naruto sighed, taking in a deep breath. "I mean, where do they get off," he raised his voice in a mock imitation of Temari, "'We won't let you just take our brother.' Bull shit! They just wanna keep him so no one else gets his power." He let out another frustrated growl, shaking his head as he did so. "Makes me feel dirty just talking to 'em… Anyway we should break camp while Gaara's talking to THOSE PEOPLE." Naruto turned a dark, playful grin on Ganten, who was still frozen by his post at the packs. "Would you like the honor of waking Uzu, or should I send Rin to do it?"

Ganten jumped immediately from his spot, racing towards his brother; for once a grin mirroring his father's spread across his face. /_That's right. Uzu's gonna pay/_

Rin stood for a moment and watched Ganten run off towards his brother. He was glad Ganten decided to wake Uzu. For one, Ganten wasn't afraid to dish out bodily harm to the redhead and for another, it gave Ganten something to focus on beyond Naruto's frightening rage.

:BREAK:

"A-are you enjoying your breakfast?" A frightened, yet conniving voice called out as Sasuke and Shikamaru sat eating their morning meal on the ship. After turning in the thieves on the last island, the captain had been uncharacteristically concerned for them, making sure they had enough blankets and pillows (a meaningless gesture as they would be in Port Town by mid-afternoon) giving them special breakfast considerations and even offering his personal cabin for their use, if needed. "I do hope you're feeling well, the rocking of the ship isn't for everyone." The captain continued, rubbing his hands together in a nervous fashion. Sasuke pinned the man with a dark, annoyed glare and the man jumped up a foot and back two. "O-of course, for two ninja such as yourselves, I imagine that a little rocking would be nothing." He added quickly.

"Is there something you want?" Sasuke asked bluntly, annoyed at the man's presence. The man didn't seem to realize that it wasn't kindness that stopped them from turning him in, but rather because it was too inconvenient to wait for another ship.

A small squeaking sound escaped the man's lips before he bowed slightly. "Just-only to see if there was anything you desired, master ninjas."

In any other circumstance, Shikamaru would have found the scene rather humorous. The man was almost as big as a horse, and it was definitely muscle, not fat, that built the man's bulk. Having him kowtow to their every whim, them being such young, small looking boys, it must've been a large slap in his pride's proverbial face. But the man was grating on his nerves. "We're fine." He replied lazily and watched as the man left the room, backing out with his face still towards them, body twisted in an awkward bow. "Damn, that man's annoying as hell."

Sasuke grunted in agreement, looking down at his plate. He'd finished eating a while ago, but the idea of going above deck to have that man follow him around was less than appealing, so instead he stared at his plate. He couldn't wait to get off this ship and away from that captain. At least he had the private pleasure of knowing that once the man's ship docked at that little island again, he would most likely be carted immediately off to jail. It was a small consolation for their current annoyed state. The door to the cabin creaked open again and Sasuke turned angry eyes towards it. The captain must have remembered some other fawning he could do. "WHAT?" Sasuke spat out, realizing too late that it was not the captain that entered the cabin.

"Just gathering some of my things! We'll be at Port Town within the hour, I'll wager." A cheery, unfazed voice replied.

Sasuke immediately recognized the man he'd talked to last night. He bowed his head to the man in apology, but the man waved him off, smiling.

"It's been a while since I've gone back to my own country… Daddy's getting excited, 'Livia." Sasuke looked at the man, for the first time noticing a small dark haired girl, no older than five, hanging onto the man's hand and peering out at Shikamaru and himself through large hazel eyes. "Where are you boys headed?" The man asked, turning a grin upon them.

Shikamaru glanced at Sasuke questioningly before replying. "We're hoping to meet up with some people in Port Town."

"And then?" The man prompted.

The two boys stared at each other for a moment. They couldn't very well tell the man that they were planning on getting on a ship for the new continent. It was illegal for ships to carry unauthorized passengers over the Great Sea, their hope had been in the excessive amount of money they could offer a ship's captain to smuggle them aboard. Telling that to a stranger was not high on their list of priorities.

The man nodded, their moments silence was all he needed to understand the situation. "I see." After a moment of looking them over he smiled. "My name's Thomas, this is my daughter, Olivia. I think I can help you boys out… for a price."

:BREAK:

Uzu was swimming in a mountain lake; the sun was shining brightly as he splashed gently through the cool water. He plunged down into the depths and looked above him, the sun was gleaming through the surface of the water and he could see a figure floating above him. There was something familiar about that form, so curious, he propelled himself upward. The vision that met his eyes when he surfaced caused his heart to skip a beat. Brown, spiky hair, pale skin, small smile playing at the edge of his lips… "Shi-… er…" Uzu blushed. "I-I didn't think I'd get to see you again."

The boy's mouth parted as he moved towards the redhead, low voice whispering his name. "Uzu… Uzu…" The voice got louder as the boy moved closer, and began to change. "Uzu… Uzu!"

Uzu pulled away from the boy slightly in shock. "What was that? You sounded just like Ganten, there."

The voice laughed, as darkness replaced the sunny scene. The boy disappeared along with the water, and all Uzu could hear was a dark laughter. Suddenly Ganten's voice rang out loud and clear, "Now you'll pay for what you've done!"

"Aarragghh!" Uzu jerked fully awake as the wind got knocked out from his body. He gasped for breath, eyes flashing open, searching for the danger. Above him, the sun shone, the birds sang and the large, white head of his brother glared down upon him.

Ganten waited a moment, until Uzu seemed to be getting his breath back and socked his brother in the stomach once more, for good measure. He watched as Uzu gasped once again, rolling onto his side and quickly scuttling away. "You can run, but don't think you can hide, bastard! How dare you cuddle with Rin all night!"

Uzu's mind was blank he only knew that he had to escape Ganten's rage until he remembered what he did. A pair of feet appeared before him and Uzu quickly crawled towards them, grabbing onto them and hiding his body as best he could behind them, he poked his head out between them to glance at Ganten. He heard laughter, and looked up to see that his father was attached to that pair of feet. Reaching a hand up, Uzu pleaded, "Father, please, help me! Ganten's gone mad."

Naruto continued to laugh, grabbing his middle son's hand and pulling him to his feet. After doing so he patted his son's shoulder and shook his head. "Ganten's gonna kill you. Best you take it like a man, son."

Ganten moved forward, knuckles cracking as he advanced. "Uzu."

"Y-yes?" Uzu's eyes widened as his brother's aura seemed to explode.

"Do you remember what you did last night?" Ganten demanded.

Uzu thought for a moment. He remembered getting the fire wood for Ganten, but that had been nice of him; Ganten wouldn't want to kill him for THAT. When he got back, Father had already fallen asleep and without a blanket, so Uzu gave him his own, and then… Uzu's eyes widened and he allowed a small noise to escape his lips. "I… crawled into bed with you and Rin?"

"Bingo."

:BREAK:

"I'm sorry."

Temari stared at her youngest brother in shocked silence for a moment. He had never apologized for anything. Ever. "Wh-what are you saying?" She could feel tears beginning to well in her eyes and she fought them back. She wasn't sure why she wanted to cry, but it was obvious that this one night with those people had changed her brother. He seemed more relaxed, there was an aura about him that could almost be described as happy, or at the very least, content…

"I know I've caused you trouble and I'm sorry." Gaara's eyes were almost soft as he said that. He turned, walking back towards Naruto's camp. There was a kind of finality to the gesture.

"Wait!" Kankurou grabbed his brother's shoulder, stopping his movement. He muttered under his breath something that sounded vaguely like 'baka.' "Do you really think we could let you just leave with this guy? What about our people? What about the plan-?"

Gaara fixed him with dark look, but he didn't respond. After a moment Kankurou's hand fell from his shoulder, his face falling. /_That's right. Why should Gaara care about what happens to our people? They never cared about what happened to him…/_

Gaara hesitated when he caught his brother's disappointed and almost worried look. "… I'll be back in four years. I have no plans on betraying the sand village, but I will not take part in our current mission."

"What about your own safety?" Temari asked, finally finding her voice. "What if that man's using you?"

Gaara stared at her for a long moment before turning away from his siblings for a final time. Hesitating before he walked away from them he replied simply, "He's not." And then he was gone. Temari and Kankurou stared at each other for a long while, partly tempted to chase after their brother and partly amazed at the change one night had had on him. They must have thought for a moment too long because the next thing they heard was the sound of a ferocious howl in the not too far distance, followed by the sound of gigantic feet dashing at a northeast direction, heading away from them. Temari was still until the sound of the feet was out of the range of her hearing, and then, like she was coming out of daze, she snapped her head up, "Shit! Gaara! Kankurou, get ready! We gotta go after them!" She shook her head, rebuking herself mentally. Gaara's change must have shaken her more than she realized to have simply watched as he disappeared with that man.

:BREAK:

Sasuke's eyes narrowed as he stared at the man, whose smile remained almost vacantly in place. "A price?"

Thomas nodded, smile widening as his daughter glanced between himself and the two boys with wide-eyed wonder. "You see… I have a…" He sighed; digging through his bag as he spoke, smile falling as he searched distractedly. "I have a pass." He finished, holding up a folded piece of orange paper, smile triumphantly returning as he did so. Noticing that neither boy seemed to recognize what he was talking about he unfolded the paper, handing it to the boy he'd spoken to the night earlier. "You see, it gives me permission to take myself and my household across the Great Sea. I know for two ninja, sneaking onto a ship wouldn't be impossible, however, considering the length of the voyage…" He trailed off, for the first time showing sings of noticing the dark look on Sasuke's face. "No good?"

"You mentioned a price?" Shikamaru asked, grabbing the pass from Sasuke as it became obvious that the dark eyed boy wasn't sure what to make of it. Either that or he didn't care.

The man's smile returned. "Yes! You see, there are three kinds of sleeping arrangements on the kind of ship that can cross the Great Sea. The lowest level is reserved for those that can barely afford the trip and usually is the worst conditioned, often people are forced to sleep next to either the ships machinery or with a cargo and it's not very pleasant. For those that can afford a little more there's group sleeping quarters on the upper levels. It's alright, as long as you're willing to live with a lack of privacy for a few months and constantly keeping an eye on your possessions. And then, each ship has at least a few private cabins. With the four of us, it would be perhaps a little cramped, but I think far less cramped than living in group quarters."

"So you want us to… pay for a private cabin and in exchange you'll let us in on your pass?" Shikamaru stared at the man skeptically. It seemed far too simple for that to be the only trick involved, and yet, he was uncannily good at reading people and couldn't catch even a hint of deception in the man's stance.

"That's right." The man looked at the two expectantly. "Well, do we have a deal?"

Sasuke glanced at Shikamaru and shrugged. He didn't care; as long as they got across the Great Sea he would be happy. The closer to Naruto he was, the better he felt.

Shikamaru shook his head, then stretched out a hand. "Alright. I guess we got a deal."

The man's smile seemed to extend from one ear to the next as he pumped both boys' hands in a firm handshake. "Great! That's just great, isn't it 'Livia?" The small girl blinked up at her father through long eyelashes and, after a moment's hesitation, nodded.

Shikamaru stared at the girl, wondering what he'd gotten them into. Oh well, at least Sasuke didn't seem to mind the good natured man. Strange, considering the small range of people they'd met that hadn't annoyed the boy. /_We should be arriving at Port Town any time now_-/

"Port Town, ahoy! Prepare the ship for docking!"

:BREAK:

Naruto dropped his transformation, laying on the ground gasping for breath. Tenmar quickly handed him his clothes as the man sat up, grin on his face. "Only took three hours."

"Three hours of hell…" Uzu muttered flashing Ganten an annoyed look. After his brother had beaten his still-dazed-from-sleep body relentlessly, he'd then added insult to injury by forcing the redhead to take care of the little baby monster, who'd spent the whole ride cooing and giggling like it was a wonderful thing.

The white haired boy shrugged the look off, offering Rin a hand in standing up. "As soon as Father's got his breath we should get going. We've got about half hour's walk to the main road, and then another half hour's walk to the gate of Port Town one of the three main entrances. The other two are by the bay or by way of the Great Sea. It's afternoon, so I don't expect the entrance to be overly busy. If we had arrived a few hours earlier we would have ended up hitting the morning market rush. A few hours later and we would have hit the rush on their way out."

Naruto laughed between strangled breathes. "All-_gasp_- part of my plan."

"Yeah, right." Uzu said pouting. "It's all luck."

Naruto jumped to his feet, suddenly having no problem breathing at all, and smacked Uzu in the back of his head. "Don't contradict your father."

"Daddy! Ow!" Uzu shifted Moab to one arm, rubbing the back of his head with the free hand. "That's where Ganten hit me!"

Naruto smiled innocently, folding his hands behind his head. "Oh, really? I hadn't noticed."

"Liar." Uzu muttered, pouting. Moab squealed in delight, slapping his small hands against Uzu's lips. "Stop it, demon child!" Uzu hollered, lifting the baby away from his face so that it couldn't reach him and shaking it slightly. "What do you think of THAT, monster?" The baby squealed once more, flailing its arms happily. Uzu's eyes narrowed as he stuffed the child under on arm and carried it like a sack of potatoes. "I hate you."

"Aw… But he loves you! Don't you, Moab-chan?" Tenmar cooed, lightly tickling the baby's cheek.

Ganten glanced around as his family teased Uzu, everyone was standing and seemed ready to move out, even Gaara who was standing to the side, staring quietly at the group. "Alright, let's get going!" He called, clapping his hands. "The sooner we get to Port Town the sooner we can find a ship and get help for Mina."

Without responding, the family slowly moved as a group through the woods, still bickering good-naturedly as they went. "You know, Tenmar, if you love the monster so much, why don't YOU take 'em?" Uzu was demanding.

"Uzu…" Naruto replied, "Don't you know that no one makes Moab happier than you? In fact, I think for the rest of the journey, I should put you officially in charge of taking care of him."

"WHAT?" Uzu cried, tossing the baby towards Tenmar, who caught it easily and returned it to his brother. "Why? I hate this-this THING."

"Well, I have my hands full with Mina, and Tenmar takes care of her whenever he can. Ganten's helping Rin until he's healed and Gaara doesn't know anything about babies, do you?"

The raccoon-eyed boy shook his head quickly.

"And he likes you!" Naruto concluded, smiling.

"But Daddy!"

Ganten glanced at his brother quickly. "Until we're on the ship you should probably refrain from calling Father that. We should probably resume calling him Naruto-sama to avoid any confusion for now."

Naruto's face fell into a pout. "Why?"

At the same time, Uzu shook his head. "No way!"

"Look, it's better to avoid any unnecessary questions!" Ganten replied with a shrug. "We don't want any trouble, do we? I mean, we're gonna stick out enough as it is, six guys walking around town looking for a ship across the Great Sea with one baby and one unconscious girl dragged behind them… Not to mention the fact that all of us kind of stick out in one way or another. I mean, Tenmar and Fath- I mean Naruto-sama," he corrected quickly, "are both exceptionally tall and seem to attract a lot of attention from women."

"Really? What a change! A few weeks ago, no one noticed me at all." Naruto grinned.

"Rin and Gaara stand out because they both look a little different around the eyes, although most people won't be able to pick that up right away. And I look funny 'cause of my white hair." Ganten shrugged.

"What about me?" Uzu asked, grinning.

"You just attract attention because you look stupid."

"Oi! That's not true!" Uzu argued, balling his free hand into a fist.

"Oh yeah?" Ganten asked, raising an eyebrow. "Sure looks it from where I'm standing."

"Daddy! Ganten's being mean to me!"

"See? You can't even remember to call him 'Naruto-sama.' Stupid is as stupid does, I guess…"

"Oi! Come here and say that, whitey!"

Tenmar laughed and shook his head as his brothers' argued and chased each other around the group in small circles and zigzags. He noticed as his head shook that strands of hair had managed to escape the bounds of his pony tail and were flipping wildly about in the wind. With a sigh he pulled off the string that held his hair bound. It had never been so hard to keep in the pony tail before he'd been forced to cut it during the battle with Kentaar, of course at that time it had hung down past his belly button, now it barely hung past his shoulders. He missed having long hair, he knew it was kind of vain, but it had been something, the one thing in fact, that he'd worked at on his appearance and now it was gone. Mostly.

Tenmar pulled his string tight as he prepared to tie his hair once more behind his head, eyes widening when he heard a faint snapping noise. With a disbelieving face he moved his hands to the front of his body, staring down at the broken hair string. "Now that's gotta be bad luck…"

:BREAK:

Ahem… Well, what did you all think of it? I think it had its weak points and strong points, but over all, the chapter did what I needed it to do: it got them to Port Town. I have a LOT of fun ideas for Port Town and for the ship (particularly the ship) SO, I've been bidding my time until I could write about it. Kinda nice how it turned out that now that I'm at a point in the story where I can let my creativity explode I'm also at a point in my year during which I can concentrate on my writing. Yay! Things worked out well for me!

OK, I did get a few questions and comments that I wanted to reply on, so let me start now:

Tsugath said: wish we could see more from Sasuke/Shika

My Reply: I put more of them in this chapter than before and you can look forward to them taking up more and more as the chapters progress!

L asked: Does this mean Sasuke will have competition for Naruto? When you said that Gaara may have the same feelings for Naruto as Rin has for Ganten... Sasuke/Shika action! They sure are having fun, aren't they?

My Reply: Ahem… Only the future can tell what will be what (heh heh, didn't really expect me to tell you, did ya?). But, yes, I think they're having fun (as much as Sasuke can have with no Naruto). Thanks for wishing me well on my finals!

Aragornthia said: But aren't you also a writer? In reference to your quote. Good chapter thieves huh? I would have done pirates but thieves work

My Reply: Ah, you caught on to my predicament… Although I also view myself as a writer, I decided my class work was more pressing AND although I love writing it will be Economics that puts the money on the table some indiscriminate time in the future. As to the pirates… All in good time (probably).

SpiritsFlame asked: didn't Gaara bite your ear off last time he was in your story?

My Reply: Yeah… in my AN for Embrace he did (almost forgot) but I love him so… I couldn't possibly hold it against him! Thanks for the nice comments, by the way!

I know this chapter took a week longer than normal, but it was fast as I could with finals! So, um… M-python-girl… call back the religious fanatics, please. The next one'll be faster, I promise.

And last, but not least, I want to thank my beta, QianYun, for all of her very hard work! Thank you!


	9. Port Town, Chance Meetings and a Ship

Hello all, how's the summer treating you so far? Mine in great! Until next week (I'm looking for a second job to hold me over during the summer…). Anyway, this chapter is up and ready, it's a little different but it gets the job done, and what's more, I like it. A brief note that I'll mention here and again at the END of the chapter, I set myself up a website (finally). Click on my author's name and it should take you to an about me page that had my site listed (I think) some of the fanart I've gotten is there (eventually all of it will be there) and eventually I'll have it all up. Check it out, AFTER you read the chapter (if you want to, that is, it's not too special yet).

:BREAK:

Exodus

Chapter 09

Port Town was busier than Sasuke had been expecting. Actually, he didn't know what to expect, nor did he care. But if he did, he would've dreaded their brief stop in the town. There were so many people, each with their own agenda, each trying to sell, buy or steal something, and many of them wanting to involve him and his companions in their plans.

"Ah, what have we here? A young ninja? Would you like a cool drink? Or perhaps some fresh fruits? What about…" The man trailed off as Sasuke walked past him without so much as a glance. Within moments the man was already calling out, heckling another potential customer. In this business you had to be quick, you couldn't concentrate on one customer for too long, or you would lose all your business. No time to hold grudges when there was product to push.

Sasuke shoved his hands deeper into his pockets as yet another merchant called out to him. He wished he could pick up his pace, but forced himself to slow for his companions. The girl, Olivia, walked slowly and deliberately through the town, wide eyes taking in every stall they walked past. It was a wonder she didn't get lost, but it was only a matter of time, they wouldn't be safe until they found a ship. "We should head towards the docks."

"Not yet, Sasuke-san." Thomas replied. Lowering his voice he added, "We need to come up with a story to tell the ship's captain. Let's look for someplace quieter to talk."

/_But we could be missing the boat! We could miss them entirely and have to wait a week or even a month in this god-forsaken place for the next boat! And Naruto could get farther ahead…/_ Sasuke wanted to scream this, he wanted to ignore the others and head towards the docks alone, but he knew he was out of his element in this place and that if he lost the others, there was a real chance that he would not find them again. So he said nothing, allowing his glare to darken as he followed Thomas, hoping the man knew what he was doing.

Unlike Sasuke, Shikamaru was rather enjoying Port Town. It was new and crowded and held many interesting elements that he would never have seen in Konoha. For instance the whore houses- they lined the streets, right next to respectable (seeming at least) restaurants and hotels. He blushed as he stared at one too long and a girl, probably not much older than himself, leaned out of a window, exposing more bare flesh than he'd seen in his life time. This place was NOT somewhere he would like to live in, but it was an interesting vacation spot. And it told him more about human nature than he would be able to learn in the books back in Konoha. /_When a community prospers there is a larger gap between the rich and the poor… And morals lapse on both ends. Interesting…/_

Shikamaru continued to glance around, this time remembering not to stare at any one place for too long. The thing that bothered him most about the place was how the buildings were built too tall and close together. You couldn't see the sky except for patches here and there, and even then the view was obscured by tall wooden and brick developments that spanned endlessly high and were tastelessly made. Not at all like back home.

Shikamaru glanced up to see that the rest of his group had wandered ahead of him. Far ahead of him. "Shit." With a sigh he picked up his pace rounding a corner and ramming headfirst into a red headed boy about his own age. Shikamaru went flying to the ground, but the boy stood as if unfazed by the impact. "Sorry, I wasn't looking where I was going."

The red haired boy stared at him though pale, tired-looking eyes, but did not reply. A moment later, another boy rounded the corner, brown haired this time, with eyes that looked like they were tormented. The brown haired boy looked at the redhead and, without touching him, got his attention. "Gaara, come on, we're going THIS way." The redhead nodded his head towards Shikamaru slightly as he turned to follow his companion.

Shikamaru glanced at the town boys as they walked away and turned another corner. There was something about them that made him pause. A familiar feeling or smell or… Glancing up, he realized that the group was now ever farther ahead of him, almost out of sight range. "Shit…" He swore once more before quickly dashing to catch up.

:BREAK:

Tenmar felt a little apprehension building as they walked through the gate of Port Town. It was pretty plain as far as gates go, but what lied behind it was like nothing he'd ever imagined. The biggest town he and his brothers had ever been to before was Konoha. This place made Konoha look like a one-horse town. Konoha was big, Port Town was gigantic. Mammoth. Beyond his wildest imagination.

Poor Rin, before they even passed the gate into town the boy was shaking. There were too many minds, too much commotion and it was all chaotic. He hadn't been this close to so many people since he was a baby and back then, he didn't have to worry about sorting the minds he was reading.

Ganten probably would have been apprehensive of entering the town himself, but his concern for his friend was too high. "Rin… Is there anything I can do?"

Rin shook his head, eyes wide. "I just need to spend a few minutes focusing my mind on something, or someONE."

"If you need to, just keep your focus on my mind." Ganten's voice was soft and concerned as he spoke to his friend, offering the boy his hand. "Here, it's easier if we're touching, right?"

Rin took the offered hand, giving Ganten a shaky smile. "So far, I only seem to be able to show you the weak side of myself…"

Ganten shook his head, eyes sincere as he replied, "I think you're one of the strongest people I know."

Tenmar blushed as he watched the tender scene unfold. That was, until Uzu came behind Ganten and slapped the boy on the back. "Smooth, little brother. 'I think you're one of the strongest people I know…' " He mimicked, fluttering he eyes before laughing.

Ganten's eyes narrowed as Uzu continued to tease them, free hand reaching out to grab his brother by the hand that was not holding the baby. "If I were you, I would remember the lesson from this morning and BACK OFF."

The reminder seemed to be enough for Uzu, as the redhead immediately moved to stand next to Tenmar and Naruto. "Da-er-Naruto-sama. How are we gonna find a ship?"

"Ah, I have a letter or something here from the Hokage to a ship's captain…" Naruto glanced down, running his hands through the pouch he wore around his waist until he pulled the letter out. "'Captain Vishell,' it says. He's supposed to be in Port Town 'till the end of the month and then he sails across the Great Sea. My letter says he'll take care of us." Naruto shrugged, "Guess the guy owes the old man a favor."

"Did you say the end of the month?" Ganten asked, picking up pieces of the conversation from his place at the front of the group with Rin. It was almost the end of the month now, wasn't it? He'd lost track of the days during their time in the woods where the days didn't matter. "What day is today…?"

"The thirtieth." Gaara replied from his position in the back of the group, next to Mina. Naruto had asked him to walk there to protect Mina, but the request showed a large amount of faith in the redhead. He could run off now with no one looking over him, or ignore the girl he was supposed to watch over and allow someone to kidnap her or worse. He was not unaware of the position he was given and what it meant. To the others and to himself.

"The THIRTIETH?" The group almost yelled as a whole. That put a damper on things. They had to find the ship and fast or they were stranded until the next ship came through, and then they'd be forced to pay full traveling fees. They picked up their speed, cold fear grabbing onto their hearts. They might be delayed if things progressed like they had been. It was time to speed things up.

Thirty minutes passed. Then an hour. They were no closer to finding the proper port than they were to finding the proper ship. A place like Port Town where all the smells were mingled and confusing and all the sounds were deceptive was NOT a good place to be looking for one tiny ship, let alone one tiny ship's captain. Tenmar sighed as his family stood in an alley way, staring at each other and wondering how they'd met ANOTHER dead end to their search. "What are we gonna do?"

Naruto looked at the faces of his children and companions. They were eagerly desperate to get on a ship and towards the unknown, the new. They wouldn't be able to wait another few months for Captain Vishell to make his way back to this part of the world, if he ever did again. And he doubted they'd have enough money to get all of them aboard another ship without each of them taking on jobs to raise some money, but then they'd have to have a place to stay while they worked, and THAT would dig into their cash supply and… "Alright, Tenmar, you go that way." Naruto pointed towards one of the four exits to their current alley way. "Gaara, go that way. Uzu, go that way and Ganten, you head that way. Go find someone and ask if they know where this Vishell person is and if not if they can point you to the docks that take in the ships from the Great Sea. Come back here when you know and we'll follow the person that has the best directions." Naruto grinned at the end of his speech, rather proud of himself for being able to think of it before Ganten.

Tenmar sighed as he obeyed his father. He didn't have much hope for finding anything or anybody in this mangled mess of people and buildings and stalls that passed for a city. He walked out of the alley way and walked quickly to the first stall he saw, which was almost immediately to his right once he left the alley. "Excuse me, sir?"

The vendor glanced up to see a tall blonde woman- no, it was a man with long pretty hair loose around his shoulders- standing next to his stall. "Would you like to buy an amulet, young sir? I have love amulets, amulets of fertility, amulets to curse your enemy, amulets-"

"I was hoping you could help me find someone." Tenmar broke in, feeling slightly guilty as he did so. Obviously, this man was running a business and didn't have much time to talk to non-customers. Tenmar wasn't surprised when the man turned away from him. He sighed, debating whether he should go to the next stall or if he should pester this man until he got the answer he was looking for. While he was debating he felt an arm suddenly wrap around his waist, an overly-familiar touch for someone Tenmar could tell by scent was a stranger.

"Hey, princess. What's a pretty thing like you doing talking to this junk dealer? If its jewels you want, I could-"

Tenmar grabbed the man's hand, squeezing hard enough to draw a gasp of pain from his lips. Tenmar then turned so that the man could see his face. Obviously he'd been mistaken for a woman. "I'm a man; please don't touch me so familiarly."

The man raised his hands in an innocent manner, but there was still a gleam in his eyes that made Tenmar feel leery. "Sorry. No offense… That's quite a grip you got there, Princess."

Tenmar choose to ignore the man's comments, deciding to attempt once again to ask the gem dealer for help. He was by far the least busy booth in the area. "Please, I'm looking for someone. A ship's captain. Can't you at least point me in the right direction?"

The merchant glanced at Tenmar once more, then sighed as he gave in to Tenmar's eager blue eyes. "Be quick about it, boy."

"Thank you!" Tenmar started, but he could tell if he spent too much time asking the question the man would lose interest in him. He didn't have that much time to spend on a non-customer. "I'm looking for a captain named Vishell. He runs a ship out towards the Great Sea today-"

"Did you say Vishell?" The obnoxious man who'd touched Tenmar earlier asked, eyes lighting up. " … What a coincidence."

Tenmar ignored the man, looking to the merchant for an answer.

The merchant shook his head. "I'm familiar with the name, of course. Who doesn't know of the Great Captain Vishell? But I'm afraid that beyond the legend of the man I cannot help you."

"Legend?" Tenmar repeated, eyebrow rising.

"I can help you." The obnoxious man said, stepping too close to Tenmar once again. "I work for him. I'll take you to the Tempest."

Tenmar looked up to see the merchant shaking his head in a warning manner, but this may be the best lead they would get. He sighed. "Fine. Just, let me get my companions."

"Don't trust him." The merchant said softy, still shaking his head.

The sailor's eyes caught on the merchant, dark look across his face. "What was that, old man?"

Tenmar glanced at the man sadly before turning away. "I don't have much of a choice. We're in a hurry. Thank you for all of your help, sir."

The merchant didn't dare reply, but continued to shake his head as he watched Tenmar lead the sailor down the alley way towards his family.

Tenmar smiled at his father as he walked into the alleyway, the obnoxious stranger following him. "Fa-Naruto-sama!" He called as he approached. "I've found someone willing to lead us to the captain."

Naruto glanced up, eyes landing on the tall sandy haired man that followed his son into the alley. He was walking far too close for a father's comfort, but Naruto gave no outward sign of caring. "You mean he hasn't left yet?" Naruto's question was directed towards the newcomer who shook his head, bemused smile on his lips. "Then I'll go get the others. Tenmar, stay with Mina." Tenmar nodded, glancing at Rin as his father ran off towards where Ganten had gone. After a moment Rin stared at Tenmar, eyes telling the man that he was going to help Naruto. Tenmar nodded and Rin was gone.

The man was left to watch as Tenmar stood over his sister's body staring at the strange man with a challenging look in his eyes as the man took in Mina's appearance.

"Is she dead?"

"NO!" Tenmar replied, perhaps too forcefully. "No. She's just sleeping. She's… There's something wrong with her mind." Tenmar leaned over his sister, brushing a stray strand of hair out of her face tenderly.

"Hum…" The man crossed his arms, watching the way Tenmar's cold face softened when he glanced at the girl. "Lover?"

Tenmar's eyes narrowed. What was he playing at? "It's none of your business."

The man laughed. "I'll take that as a no. She's close to you, but more like a friend or… sister?" The man smiled, the look on the blonde's face told him he was right.

Tenmar opened his mouth to reply, but then his father was back in the alley with Uzu and Ganten. Rin and Gaara were close behind them. "We're all here. Lead the way."

"Fine. Tenmar." He toyed with the boy's name on his tongue as he turned towards the docks, it felt a little strange, but it was a nice name. "You can call me Fetch, that's what my friends call me."

"Why would I want to be your friend?" Tenmar replied.

The man laughed in return, a good, hearty sounding laugh. "Whatever you say, princess."

:BREAK:

Sasuke glanced around as they reached the docks. They had gotten there with relative ease considering the complete chaos the city invited. Thomas winded his way easily through the crowds and suddenly they were slowly walking down a long line of the largest ships Sasuke had ever seen. These ships made the one they'd traveled across the bay in look like a paddle boat.

Thomas walked down the rows of ships, apparently looking for something in particular. Apparently having found it, he paused in front of a ship with the words 'The Tempest' painted clearly on it, giving warning glances to the boys. "Remember our story. Shikamaru's my servant and Sasuke, you're my personal body guard. That should be enough for no questions to be asked when I show them my pass. Once we're far enough out to sea we can drop the act, nobody's gonna turn the ship around once we're a week out."

Shikamaru snorted, "Yeah, but until then, you got a personal slave. Why'd I get stuck with the servant role?"

Thomas smiled at him in return, patting his back. He didn't think the boy really wanted an answer to that question, as the arrangements had been HIS idea in the first place. He knew all too well that no one in their right mind would believe that Sasuke was a servant boy, whereas Shikamaru's slightly droopy eye lids and tendency to complain made him seem the perfect 'disgruntled work boy'. "I promise not to be too demanding."

After that, Thomas led the group up a long pier and then up a plank and onto the Tempest. He walked holding Olivia in his arms, acting the over-protective father. Well, actually, Shikamaru was pretty sure he wasn't acting that role. Sasuke walked behind him, eyes shifting to and fro as if looking for danger. It really WAS the perfect role for the dark haired boy as he did not need to break from his normal paranoid and unpleasant personality. Shikamaru came up the back, carrying seven or eight bags of assorted clothes and personal effects. It looked like he was Thomas's pack horse, but in reality less than half of the bags belonged to the man. Four of them larger bags were full of his and Sasuke's items (clothing, books, a shogi board and whatever remained of their provisions from the hike across the woods).

"Good afternoon, my good man!" Thomas called as he approached the man standing watch for stowaways. "This is the Tempest, is it not?"

The sailor looked slightly worse for wear as they approached. His skin was tanned and rough-looking, perhaps from old age, but more likely from too many long hours out in the sun without covering. His white hair hung in greasy strands from his head and when he opened his mouth to talk it was noticeable that he was missing more than a few visible teeth. The man looked Thomas up and down, taking a moment to spit over the edge of the ship before replying. "What's it to you?"

"It's a great deal to me, actually. My daughter and I are looking for transport home, to Grendelsphere. Across the Great Sea."

"I know where it is." The man replied, apparently not yet impressed with Thomas's attitude.

"I hear your ship will be departing within the next few hours. We'd very much like to be on board, if you have the space."

"Got the space. You got a pass?"

"Of course." Thomas snapped his fingers, Shikamaru's cue to present the sailor with Thomas's pass.

Dropping the luggage carefully on the ramp, Shikamaru pulled the pass from his back pocket. "Here it is, sir." He carefully handed it to Thomas, then allowed HIM to pass it to the sailor. It would be poor servant etiquette to hand an item his master asked for to somebody else.

As soon as the sailor had the pass he examined it, looking carefully at the crest in the center, then at the top right corner and finally holding it up to the sun. Apparently it checked out because he nodded, handing the pass back to Thomas.

Thomas folded the paper back up and handing it to Shikamaru, who once again placed it in his back pocket. "We'll be requiring a private cabin for myself and my daughter. These two will be staying with us as well."

"Servants?" The man looked both Sasuke and Shikamaru up and down before returning his attention to Thomas. "We don't got two open cabins. You'll have to share."

Although that had always been the plan, Thomas now made a big show of how inconvenient the situation was. Eventually he settled down. "I suppose ONE will HAVE to do."

"It's gonna cost ya. Five hundred."

Thomas made no comment about the price, although Shikamaru could see his head twitch slightly in surprise from behind. He obviously hadn't been expecting it to cost so much. It must have been the last cabin left; they probably raised the price of each cabin after they rented one. Shikamaru waited patiently for Thomas's snap before pulling the money pouch from around his neck. He pulled out the fee, making sure not to reveal just how much was left over after they paid. It wouldn't do to have the sailor know that five hundred was only a drop in the bucket of the fortune they were hefting around.

After the sailor had the money he turned his head towards the back, in a loud, bellowing voice he called, "Jax! Get your good-for-nothing ass over here and show this man to his cabin!"

A boy, presumably Jax, no older than fifteen appeared before them, bright red hair framed his face and freckles stood out predominately across his nose and cheeks. He had the lanky look of someone whose body hadn't quite been able to fill outward as fast as upward. He was dressed similarly to the sailor that guarded the entrance to the ship, very loose fitting clothes, comfortable and allowing free movement, but not too good for stealth. "Which cabin?"

"Which cabin!" The man's returning bellow made Shikamaru's head spin. "The only cabin not occupied. The east cabin, you waste of a human being."

The boy flushed slightly at the reprimand, but nodded at Thomas and the others and led them quickly away from the sailor. He didn't speak to them as he walked and it left Shikamaru time to look around. The ship was just as huge from the deck as it had looked from the dock. People, sailors and travelers alike, wandered across the top. Shikamaru hadn't seen so many foreign looking people in his life. To be fair, they probably WERE all foreign. No ninja, except those on missions, were allowed to cross the Sea and it was even rarer for a non-ninja to make the journey, at least according to what Shikamaru had heard. Of course, most likely, the non-ninja that HAD made the journey probably hadn't returned.

From behind them, Shikamaru could hear the sailor bellowing at someone else. "Fetch, you lazy bastard, where the hell have you been all this time? We're gettin' ready to leave an' you disappear for hours."

"I brought a gift for the Captain. Where is he?"

Without turning to look at the man, Shikamaru could tell he was responding to the sailor's insults good-naturedly. That was good to know. The man swore up a storm and was very condescending, but he wasn't disliked and even more important, it was simply his nature to blow smoke at people, try to intimidate.

They reached their cabin and Thomas pressed a coin in the boy's hand, quickly shutting him out of the room. He then collapsed on one of the beds with a sigh. "Whew… That was interesting."

"Yeah, good thing it worked, eh?" Shikamaru replied, flopping himself down on the room's other bed. Besides the two beds, there was a table and two wooden chairs, all nailed down firmly to the floor. Shikamaru figured that Thomas and Olivia could share a bed, leaving himself and Sasuke to duke it out over the remaining one. "I'll rock-paper-scissors you for the first night on the bed."

Sasuke shook his head, looking around disdainfully. "I don't care, you take it."

Shikamaru shrugged, content with the arrangement. He could almost fall asleep now. It was amazing, he hadn't realized how much he missed having a bed until he was laying on one.

:BREAK:

Tenmar sighed as they followed Fetch through what had to be the long way to the docks. The man stopped occasionally, explaining that he had a few errands to run for the captain before he returned to the Tempest (the name of Captain Vishell's ship, apparently). Occasionally the man turned to look at them while he talked to whichever merchant he was dealing with. Turned to look at HIM. He could feel the man's eyes on him as they walked, even when he stood behind the man. Tenmar shook his head; that was ridiculous. He had to be imagining the man's attention. But as Tenmar stared, Fetch turned, leer spreading across his smug-looking face.

"We're here." He turned down an alley and at the exit they could see, finally, a long line of docks, ships the size of a small town spanning the entire length of them. He walked briskly up a nearby plank to a ship labeled 'Tempest' in large, acrylic letters. "Oi! Branger!"

"Fetch, you lazy bastard, where the hell have you been all this time? We're gettin' ready to leave an' you disappear for hours." A large, un-kept looking man replied, despite his words, his face was lined with a kind of smile.

"I brought a gift for the Captain. Where is he?" Fetch replied, leaping easily onto the ship. He then turned, offering Tenmar a hand on stepping off the ramp. "Watch your step, princess."

Tenmar's eyes narrowed as he stepped onto the ship, ignoring the hand and turning to assist his father in helping Mina onto the ship.

"More passengers?" The man, Branger, demanded.

"Seems like it. Go get the captain, bastard. I'll watch the ramp."

"Yeah, but he ain't gonna like it." The man stood, turning. "Cabins all filled up."

"Just go get 'em."

"Pretty influential, aren't you?" Ganten observed, watching Branger walk away fast enough to look humorous for a man of his size. He kept his hands on Rin carefully. He'd seemed to be getting used to being surrounded by people, but Ganten was still worried and had decided not to leave the boy's side until the city was out of the range of his abilities.

Fetch shrugged, leaning lazily against the ships rail, eyes on Tenmar. It was cute how the blond looked around the ship with such wide, excited looking eyes. Most of his companions seemed to have a certain level of excitement to them, as well. The other blond almost looked as cute as Tenmar did, they could have passed for brothers, but for some reason, that didn't seem quite right. "Branger'll listen to anybody, so long as they ask right."

"What's this, Fetcher?" A large, muscular man with a thick black beard and a gruff, booming voice appeared. His face and arms were so covered with hair that it was impossible to see his features easily.

Fetch pushed himself off of the rail, standing almost at attention when his captain appeared. "Captain, these people were asking about you in town."

The captain looked the group over, eyes staying a little longer on Moab, who still hung from under Uzu's arm like an old sack, and Mina. "We don't got no more cabins."

"So I hear." Naruto replied, stepping forward, letter outstretched. "But I was told to see you. Here, this is from the old man."

Captain Vishell took the letter, eyes widening as he read through it. When he was done, he glanced up with a sigh. "Damn. The one person I can't say no to. How'd you know Sarutobi, kid?"

Naruto smiled as it became obvious that he was going to be let on board. "He's Hokage of the ninja village I was raised in."

"Really?" Naruto could see the surprise flicker across the captain's face. "When'd that happen?'

"A million years ago. He's already retired AND taken back his position when his replacement died. Just how far back do you two go?"

Vishell smiled, "It's a long story. Well, like I said, there're no more cabins, but I can't turn you away… Fetch!" He bellowed the man's name.

Fetch winced from his position next to the captain. His ears were now ringing. "Yeah?"

"What do we got in way of sleeping quarters?"

"Well, there's enough room in the shared quarters area for 'em, it'll be tight, but…" Fetch smiled wickedly as his eyes landed on Tenmar. "They could always sleep in the crew quarters. There's enough spare room in my area for a few of them and the rest could-"

"No… No." The captain appeared to be lost in thought for a moment before he once again bellowed, "Fetch!"

The man winced once more, but responded to his summons. "WHAT?"

"What about storage B? We got cloth in there, right? Not too full, should be comfortable enough…" He turned to Naruto again, seeming to have made his decision. "It's got no view, but it'll be private for the little lady and the baby. We got a deal?"

Naruto glanced at his family who shrugged or nodded in return. Only Tenmar seemed less than happy with the arrangement. With a mental apology to his oldest son, Naruto slapped his hand into Vishell's. "Great!"

:BREAK:

OK, well, that's it for now. Next chapter begins high ocean adventure! I'm really looking forward to writing some high ocean adventure, if you couldn't tell. Don't worry, I won't have them not knowing the other's on board the same ship for TOO LONG. I think. 

Anyway, as mentioned before, I've got a website.

http/psychickingdom. _dot_ 250free _dot_ com (with the italicized dots as actual dots rather than words).

I would be oh so happy if you'd all come and check it out, and drop me a line to tell me how you like it. To be honest, it's not much. I don't have website editor software, so it's a long hard road to get it to look like it DOES, let alone to get it to look any nicer… Anyway, if I devote too much attention to it, that that would distract from writing. But for now it's slightly up.

I have the fanart that other people drew for me waiting to be put on (even one or two of my own, if I'm feeling brave). The problem is that my computer crashed a while back and, although I was able to save the pictures, I did not save the artists names. If you drew me a picture, PLEASE e-mail me an' let me know which one you drew and what name you want to be credited for the art. Also, since I got a website, I'm now willing to take in fanart that people want to draw for me… Ahem… Hint hint. Anyway, that's it for now; hope you all have a good week!

And, last but not least, as always, thank you to QianYun, my beta!


	10. Sleepless Nights

OK, I KNOW it's been forever, but I gotta say that it's not entirely my fault. Ahem clearing throat you see, I haven't been able to get ON at ALL on my computer. Because of that, I haven't exactly been feeling like writing at all, because who's gonna read it? Then I remembered by website and thought some of you might go on there to check for updates… So I prematurely posted that I'd put a chapter up by the end of LAST week… Bad, bad, Psychic King. Well, at least I have a chapter now. Do me a favor, and if you read this, let me know by either heading towards my Contact Me page or sending me an e-mail. (feel free to throw either praise or complaints at me, I know I deserve some for neglecting my story…) Anyway, I hope you all enjoy the chapter (at least those of you that can read it on this site). I'm gonna try to get the chapter on by using someone else's computer soon, but until then, this is the best I can do…

EDIT Well, no sooner did I start to whine than am I suddenly allowed on again! Hurray for me! Or something like that. Anyway, you can check my site for earlier updates of the chapters in the future, but for now, YAY! You can read this on I don't have to loose all my readers!

Exodus

Chapter 10

Naruto sat in their new 'cabin', relaxing. His children and traveling companions had pretty much immediately fallen asleep after watching the ship leave port. Uzu and Naruto'd enjoyed it far more than the others. Uzu had enjoyed it so much that he'd actually played with Moab, gently dangling the baby over the edge of the ship. Naruto thought about that for a moment. Maybe that hadn't been playing… Naruto shrugged, at least he didn't drop the baby over the edge.

Besides the two of them, Gaara didn't strike Naruto as the kind of person to visibly enjoy ANYHTING and Tenmar was too busy avoiding the sailor that had shown them to the ship, Fetch, to enjoy watching Port Town disappear. Rin was still a little disoriented, although it was obvious that they farther they moved from port the better he felt, and Ganten was far too concerned for Rin to take much notice of the disappearing land that was their home.

With a stab of pain when he once again realized that he was leaving a land that had been home for as long as he'd been alive. Unbidden a pair of angry eyes, glaring at him from a distance flashed into his mind. Sasuke hadn't been happy with Naruto's departure. Rolling over to his side on a large pile of blankets Naruto wondered if Sasuke would forgive him by the time he returned. /_Or maybe he'll forget about me./_ The thought caused a long pile of other thoughts to flood through his mind. Most involved Sasuke, but some involved the welfare of Konoha and those he left behind. /_Maybe leaving was the wrong decision./_ His eyes caught on Mina. /_NO! I have to remember what we left for. Mina… Moab… And I wonder how Aki's doing. And Tagen… And his children. And Sasuke's too young to be bound to me just yet. I'm not a cradle robber…/_

Naruto sat up, giving up on trying to relax and sleep. He'd managed to rest during the travels because of how hard he'd pushed himself, but now that they were on the boat he worried that he'd be left too long with only his thoughts to entertain him. Being stuck somewhere with no action forced him to do what he was worst at; contemplate. There was a lot he could contemplate, too. He'd lived more than one lifetime by this point, and, although he resented the title 'Fox Demon', he'd been far from a saint. It didn't help that present matters were not encouraging.

With a sigh Naruto pushed himself to his feet, moving soundlessly towards the door. Maybe there was something to do up on deck. At the very least, he suspected that the night air would help him clear his mind. He allowed the door to click behind him quietly, jogging towards the stairs. He didn't notice a pair of pale blue eyes watching him quietly from the shadows. After a moment, Gaara followed Naruto's suit, pushing himself up to his feet and stepping quietly out of the room.

:BREAK:

Naruto was happy to find that his suspicions had been right; there were enough things happening on deck to keep him entertained. For now. He sat for a moment, watching a man with a lantern on a long thin pole climb up some rope running along side the sails. There was another man sitting comfortably in the crow's nest, eyes barely open as he took a long drag on a cigarette. There was at least one sailor posted at every side of the ship, each equipped with a sword, a lantern and a horn. Naruto stared at the lantern quizzically.

"It's for warnings. In case we get attacked by pirates." A low voice said, a little too close to his ear for comfort's sake. "Couldn't sleep?"

Naruto turned to find himself face to face with Fetch. After taking a step away from the man he shook his head. "No."

Fetch's eyes measured him up from head to toe. "I wouldn't have pegged you for the type to get sea sick-"

"That's NOT the problem." Naruto replied quickly, as if the indication that he could get sick was a slight against his manliness.

"Old demons haunting your memories?" Fetch asked quietly, eyes a little too intense for the question to have been asked in simple curiosity.

Naruto shook his head, letting out a slight laugh at the man's choice in wording. "Something like that."

"You guys in trouble?" Fetch asked.

Naruto glanced at him in surprise. "What-"

"I'm not askin' too be nosey. I just…" He sighed, looking away from Naruto. When he glanced back a moment later, his eyes shone with earnestly. "The only time I seen a tight-knit group like yours that wasn't family was when they were runnin' from something."

"It's nothing that's gonna cause trouble on the ship, if that's what you're worried about. We don't leave our enemies down to come back for us." After a moment Naruto added, "And who said we're not family?"

Fetch dug through his pockets, pulling out a pack of cigarettes and pulling one out for himself. He offered Naruto one, which was declined, before putting them away. "Tenmar… Doesn't treat you like a brother. Unless…?" He left his sentence hanging, question lingering in the air.

"Unless what?" Naruto responded wearily, not quite getting what the sailor was attempting to hint at.

"Are he and you together?"

"Well, YEAH. Obviously, we're ALL together, otherwise WHY would we share a cab-"Naruto's eyebrows shot up his forehead as he finally caught onto the look in Fetch's eyes. Confusion and surprise battled across his tan face before it finally settled on a look of disgust. He hadn't even thought about the idea that people would think he was paired up with one of his companions, especially not one of his own children. "Me and Tenmar-? Is THAT how we look?"

Fetch nodded, body relaxing a bit. Naruto's response was telling enough for him to know he'd misunderstood. "A bit. I seen a lot of people in an' out of this old ship over the years, I like to think I figured something out about group dynamics." He took a long drag of his cigarette before continuing on. "For instance, we got this guy in here, traveling with two young servant boys and a little girl. This guy's obviously loaded, I mean, he took the most expensive cabin, traveling with servants, an' he didn't have a lot of luggage, I hear. I didn't see 'em board, but I ran into him and the little girl as we were pushing off, an' let me tell you, there's something strange goin' on there."

"Yeah?" Naruto responded, curiosity roused. "Like what?"

"Well, fer one, I'd bet the Tempest herself if that girl isn't really his daughter. Somethin' unnatural about the way they act together."

"Like she'd been kidnapped?" Naruto asked, getting more curious as the story continued.

"That was my first thought, but then, she don't exactly act like she's scared a 'im." Fetch took another long drag of his cigarette, obviously enjoying having an enraptured audience, even if it was only of one. "It seemed more like…" He shook his head, "I donno, can't put my finger on it exactly. Then, while I was talkin' to 'em, one of the boy's came up, short spiky haired kid, had the kind of look in his eye that tells ya he's lazy. Now why would a rich bastard like THAT need to hire a lazy-ass servant? An' the boy was young, and from what I hear the bodyguard is 'bout the same age."

"Hum…" Naruto looked over the sea, mind racing over what he'd just been told. The mystery Fetch had laid before him was effectively taking his mind off his homesickness. "Why would a rich guy need to have a bodyguard that's so young and inexperienced?"

"Exactly." Fetch took a final drag of his cigarette before flicking it into the sea. He watched as the ocean swallowed it for a moment before continuing. "First thing that crossed my mind was that he was smugglin' the boy's off the continent. Commin' in the morning we gotta stop over at the last island associated with this continent, we call it Point, an' we gotta produce papers for each an' every one of our passengers. Most of 'em are refugees coming back Brusselshire now that ol' King Clark's dead, but some of 'em are from here an' heading out looking for adventure in a new land. Every once in a while we get ninja on missions. Whatever the situation, we gotta have papers fer all of 'em before they let us leave the Point."

"Papers?" Naruto asked, eyes wide, mind playing the scene of them getting to this 'Point' and being told to turn back to Konoha.

"Don't worry 'bout it. Captain keeps some fakes on board fer situations like yours an' the security ain't that tight getting OUT, it's commin' back that you'll wanna make sure you've got you're shit in order."

"So you think the rich guy's smuggling the boy's off the continent?" Naruto asked once his immediate concern was cleared. Despite himself, he was enjoying listening to Fetch talk. He could feel his excitement building as the sailor talked about far off places that he never even dreamed of before this moment.

Fetch shook his head. "That's what I THOUGHT, but… That still don't explain the little girl, an… something just FEELS wrong about the whole situation. Just like something feels weird about YOUR situation."

Naruto grimaced, remember what had brought this conversation on. "What's weird about us?"

"Well, obviously, that little one, with the red hair, isn't really part of your group. Why you're taking him 'long, I don't know, but-"

"Gaara's part of the group." Naruto replied sternly. Adding after a moment, "He just hasn't been with us for long."

Fetch raised his hands, "Hey, I didn't mean anything by it; it's just obvious that he's the odd man out, that's all. That creepy looking brown haired kid, too."

Naruto snorted. "Don't let Ganten hear you say that."

"Ganten… The white haired boy? Yeah, he's why I don't think anything REAL weird about that kid. Obviously there's somethin' going on there. The others, Tenmar, Ganten, the red head kid and the comatose chick, obviously THEY all have a tight bond. Tight as blood, no question. Tighter 'an blood, actually, but that's happens in a family sometimes. Obvious they've been through some hard times. Wouldn't be surprised if they weren't all siblings. "

Naruto listened to Fetch's assessment of his group; the man had picked up a lot during the few hours they were together. It also amused Naruto, the way the man picked up each person's name when Naruto told him and then made it a point to repeat the name in his monologue in order to lock the name in his memory. "What about me?"

Fetch leaned back, pulling out another cigarette. "THAT'S where I'm stuck. Look-wise you could be one of them, the Tenmar group. But the way they act around you is even more awkward than they way they act 'round the little homicidal lookin' kid, Gaara. They obey you, they obviously look up to you and truly care about you, but it's like they don't know how to really BE with you. Like a big brother or father that's been away fer a few years and missed everybody growin' up. But you're not old enough to be the father and you're not their big brother."

Naruto looked away for a moment; Fetch's words stabbing MUCH too close to the truth for his own comfort. Naruto wondered how the man was so certain that he was not their brother.

When Naruto didn't reply, Fetch continued on. "That's why I thought you might be with Tenmar. You know, big brother's lover, takin' care of the family with big brother, sort of a father figure or what not. If you two hadn't been together for too long it might explain the slight awkwardness, but also the affection everyone seems to have for you." Looking at Naruto Fetch sighed. "Don't suppose you're gonna shine any light on it for me?"

Naruto shook his head. "Not today. But you are pretty observant. I'll grant you that."

Fetch grinned, blush creeping over his face, or was that just the shadows playing tricks? "Well, I'll admit, I got a special reason for watching you all…"

"Especially Tenmar." Naruto added, watching as the man's grin widened a bit and there was no longer a question of whether or not he was blushing.

Fetch stood awkwardly for a moment, scratching the back of his head before glancing at the night shift watchers. It was already time for shift change, he'd been talking far longer than he'd expected to. "Ahem. Well, look at the time, I best be heading to bed. Morning comes early on this ship."

"Goodngiht." Naruto watched Fetch leave for a moment, smile on his face. He rather liked him, and if it weren't for Tenmar's own distaste for the man would probably have played matchmaker for the two. /_Actually/_ Naruto thought, thinking of the amount of time they would have being bored on the ship//_I still may…/_ After Fetch was gone, Naruto turned his head to smile at the spot Gaara had been occupying since their conversation began. "You might as well come out now. He's gone."

Gaara stepped out of the shadows to look awkwardly at Naruto. There was just enough light from the watchman up the way to make out his features. He was facing the ocean, hair blowing lightly in the wind, eyes closed, face blank. He looked almost beautiful in the pale light. Of course, when he really shone was in the daylight, under the full force of the noon sun.

After a moment Naruto's solemn face dropped and was replaced with his typical happy smile. "You having trouble sleeping, too?"

Gaara nodded, uncertain of what to say. Luckily the blonde seemed to have enough words for the both of them.

"I'm not gonna bite you. Again." Naruto said with a laugh, gesturing to the boy to stand next to him. When Gaara complied, Naruto leaned down, laying his head on the railing with a sigh. Cocking his head up towards Gaara from that position he smiled again, this time wistfully. "I started thinking about home. Konoha, the forests, the people… It's almost enough to make me wanna jump out and swim back." After a moment of studying Gaara closely he added, "It's probably worse for you. Surrounded by people you barely know, heading towards an unknown place where you might or might not be able to get help for your problem."

Gaara shook his head, eyes serious. "I don't care."

Naruto straightened, staring at the boy in surprise. "Eh?"

Gaara returned the gaze without flinching. "You won the fight." After a long moment he added, "My mother died. Giving birth to me."

Naruto stared at the boy for a moment, taking in his expressionless face, then what those words must mean to him. His mother was dead. Naruto had never known a mother either, not while he was growing up in Konoha nor before. But growing up he'd had his brothers to look after him and in Konoha there was the old man and Iruka-sensei, and then later Kakashi-sensei, Sakura and Sasuke. In Gaara's few words Naruto realized that the boy hadn't even had that. He'd suspected as much, but hearing the boy say so in such an emotionless way was too much. The blonde's arm snaked out, and he grabbed Gaara, pulling him into a half-hug against his side. He stood that way for a long moment, allowing his hand to ruffle the boy's short red hair.

Gaara stood in shocked surprise as Naruto gently held him against his side. It was the closest thing to a hug he'd had since… Since he was a child. It felt nice. Naruto was warm, far warmer than a normal person. Probably had something to do with his fox-demon half. Gaara's head twisted up as Naruto began to speak in a low, soft voice.

"I've decided. It's OK. From now on we're your family. The others are OK with it, too, so don't worry about anything." Naruto leaned down as he talked until his face was level with Gaara's. "Just be yourself, we all want you to be happy. We'll wait as long as it takes." After a while of standing like that, the two went below deck to their room, and this time when they closed their eyes, sleep came to them.

:BREAK:

Sasuke lay in on the floor of the cabin, eyes staring wide at the dark ceiling above. Shikamaru, Thomas and Olivia were all asleep, or if not, had evened out their breathing as if to pretend they were sleeping. Sasuke shook his head, wondering why he had such a hard time trusting anybody. The sole exception had been Naruto and, perhaps, to a lesser extent, his children. It wasn't trust for Thomas that led Sasuke to accept the man's offer, but the ease of going along with him.

Today had proven to be disappointing for the dark haired boy. After briefly, VERY briefly, looking at the cabin they'd be staying in for the next month or so (a nice room with two decent sized beds, it also stood as the only cabin above deck besides the captain's cabin on the whole of the ship) Sasuke immediately went below deck to look at the communal living area. Being a body guard was the perfect cover for Sasuke to go poking around. No one tried to stop him as he walked the ship, eyes glancing from side to side as he stomped up and down the ladder leading to the communal area.

The communal area was nowhere near as nice as their cabin. Actually, the communal area was nowhere near as nice as a hole in the ground. There were hundreds of people, many of whom looked like criminals on the run. Sasuke glanced down at a young mother holding two young children in her arms, while glancing around to make sure that no one suspicious approached her. He felt a stab of pity for the woman, it looked like she was traveling alone with her children on the ship and already it was obvious that some of the seedier looking men had moved themselves closer to her sleeping area.

/_Who takes care of these people_/ Sasuke wondered as he noticed several other young women on the below deck. It didn't appear that there were any others traveling without a husband or father, but that was no guarantee that they would be saved from the dangerous looking men.

Sasuke looked around for a while longer, until he began drawing unwanted attention, before heading up. He couldn't see hear or smell Naruto, and was rather relieved at that fact. Initially he'd been hoping to meet Naruto on the ship, but now he was just gland that the blonde wasn't staying in squalor with these people. As Sasuke made his was above deck he made a mental promise to keep an eye on the young mother. He didn't know what would possess a woman to travel alone on a ship like this, but whatever the case it seemed that she was desperate.

By the time Sasuke had returned to his cabin the land had faded to a small speck on the horizon. He hadn't spent his time idle, though. After checking the communal area he had made a brief stop outside each of the personal cabins, enough to be certain that neither Naruto nor his children were on the ship, at least, not anywhere obvious.

In the cabin, it seemed Shikamaru and Thomas had both fallen asleep, although Sasuke suspected that Shikamaru had spent at least a little time watching their home land disappear in the distance.

With a slight sigh, Sasuke rolled over trying to convince his mind to relax so he could sleep. It would have been easier to do on the bed, but… Technically the bed was big enough to fit both boys, but the idea of sharing with Shikamaru was unappealing. His mind flashed to the memory of Naruto curled into his side together on his bed. That had been before Naruto suddenly grew up, of course. He spent a long moment trying to imagine the adult Naruto curled up next to him, but it was beyond his capabilities.

Sasuke forced his eyes closed, attempting to calm himself, but as soon as they were shut a pair of hauntingly beautiful blue eyes flashed through his mind. With a frustrated sigh, Sasuke finally gave up on the idea of getting any sleep tonight. He rose, walking silently to the door, his head a jumble of thoughts and feelings.

The crisp sea air did wonders for Sasuke as he stepped out of the cabin and onto the deck. He watched with only mild interest as the night crew moved about the deck, silently doing their own thing. In the corner there were six sailors standing around, smoking cigarettes and talking in low whispers to each other. Curious, Sasuke moved closer, face flushing as he caught the tail end of a raunchy joke. One of them glanced up at him and their laughter got louder as they noticed his apparent discomfort.

"Eh, don't mind them!" A loud voice broke out as a large man moved up to him, giving him a sturdy slap on the back as he approached. "They're always like that, that's why they're on the night crew."

Sasuke turned to see a gigantic, hairy mammoth of a man standing behind him. He didn't respond to the man, instead moving away so that he was just barely out of the man's reach.

The man seemed unfazed by Sasuke's unresponsiveness, as he continued on. "They're the scum of the scum, night shift sailors, but this lot 'ere is also some of the best. Quick in a fight and loyal as hound dogs." The large man scrutinized Sasuke for a moment before continuing on. "You're with that rich fellow from this afternoon, the one in the deluxe cabin, eh?" He laughed a bit, "You all've caused somethin' on a stir with my men. Wonderin' why a rich prick like that'd have a little thing like you for a body guard."

"What was that?" Sasuke's responded, voice cold as ice.

The man let out a loud, braying laughter at Sasuke's indignation. "Now, now. Don't mean a thing by it, just pointing out a fact here. You're a runt by any standars, and a man like that, who can fork out that much cash without batting an eye, well… I don't gotta tell YOU that there's somethin' stange goin' on. 'Course, you goin' off an' snoopin' 'round the ship 'asn't helped rumors either. Nope, people gonna be watchin' you all pretty closely over the next few months. Just givin' you a heads up, kid." And with that the man continued on, his merry way, once again throwing his head back and laughing at the look on Sasuke's face.

For a moment Sasuke stood at the railing and glared out at the sea. People were watching them, what did he care? It wasn't like he was doing anything WRONG. Well, except for using Thomas to smuggle himself and Shikamaru to where Naruto would be.

Sasuke's glare softened as Naruto's name went through his head. He wondered if the blonde had gotten to the docks before them and would be a few days ahead of them to wherever the hell this ship stopped to turn around. Of course, more likely was the probability that the idiot got distracted on his way to Port Town and would be arriving a few days later than Sasuke. Maybe up to a month or so later.

Not knowing would make things more complicated. When they got off the ship should Shikamaru and he wait for a while in the town? Should they head directly towards the place in Sasuke's dream? Or maybe they should look for companions, people they could hire to help them across the forest and the desert. As much as Sasuke hated to admit it, he was going to be out of his element trekking across dessert, and who knew what kind of crap they'd have to deal with, having someone that knew the area would be necessary if it would only be the two of them. If only they could find Naruto and the others before they started traveling through the strange new continent! Things would be so much easier that way.

Sasuke looked up from his thoughts when he noticed that the watchmen with the lanterns seemed to be changing shifts. A wave of exhaustion washed over him, one which was only worsened when he remembered exactly how many days he would be stuck on the ship with only his thoughts. And Shikamaru. Feeling suddenly weary from head to toe, Sasuke returned to his cabin. This time he managed to fall asleep as soon as his head hit his pillow.

:BREAK:

Tenmar woke early the next morning, far before any of the others. He glanced over towards Mina, who was still resting peacefully, a fact that worried him increasingly as time went on. She hadn't had a fit since the night of the fight with Gaara, when Rin had attempted to contact her mind. With a heavy heart he went about taking care of her bedding, running a cool cloth across her face, brushing her hair gently and changing her clothing.

Once he was done with that he took a look at the others. A small smile fitted across his face as he noticed Ganten and Rin sleeping in a corner of the room. The white haired boy had Rin pushed up against a wall, with his own body on the boy's other side, so that no one (Uzu in specific) could touch the boy. Ganten was sleeping with his arms around Rin, and Rin seemed to have curled into Ganten during the night, so that his head was buried into Ganten's chest. It was an adorable scene.

Tenmar's eyes flashed next for Moab, thinking that he would take the baby out of the cabin in order to allow the other's some rest from the child's more than likely chance of waking up crying. Thoughts of taking Moab fell away as he noticed the way he'd been sleeping. Uzu had been taking care of Moab last, and apparently had fallen asleep before he'd remembered to put Moab in a make-shift crib. Instead he'd slept with the child laying on his chest. The small baby was laying face down, arms slightly sprawled out on Uzu's chest and underneath him Uzu was laying in a similar position, except face up. Tenmar felt a stab of regret that he did not own a camera. These were the moments that he would love to capture and tease his cute younger brothers about for all eternity.

Moving from Uzu, Tenmar allowed his eyes to search for Gaara. The boy had cornered himself off in the far side of the room when they'd first arrived on ship, but when Tenmar's eyes found the corner they did not find Gaara. Concerned he debated over waking up his father, and moved towards the man with that intention. That was when his eyes caught a tuft of dark red hiding behind Naruto's large body. Naruto had slept facing his children, on his side. On the other side of Naruto, lying back to back with the blonde was Gaara, eyes closed. Tenmar smiled at the peaceful look on Gaara's face. Then he was hit with a disturbing thought. _/Why **are** they sleeping together? It can't be that Father has developed… an interest in that boy/_

The thought disturbed Tenmar more and more as he thought about it, until he decided to leave the room and head above deck. He wasn't sure if it was the age difference or the fact that he KNEW his father had feelings still for Sasuke that bothered him about the idea of Naruto being with Gaara.

There were very few people above deck, and Tenmar realized just how early he'd woken up. The sun wasn't even up yet, although it was starting peek over the edge of the ocean towards them. With a sigh he moved towards the very east most point of the ship, letting the breeze and warmth of the few rays of sun comfort his mind. It wasn't his business what his father did, and just because they were sleeping next to each other didn't mean that they were together in any way… right?

As he stood there, Tenmar felt his hair whipping around his face. He really needed to find a replacement string for the one he'd broke the day before. He probably looked like a woman in this light, it was embarrassing.

Tenmar felt his face flush as he heard the sound of a little girl's voice, calling out to her father, "Look daddy, it's a beautiful angle!" Turning he found himself face to face with a young father holding onto his small daughter as she pointed at him.

"Aha," Tenmar laughed weakly, "N-no, I'm so-"

"Yes, 'Livia, he's certainly is." The man replied, grinning proudly at his daughter. He then glanced at Tenmar, reaching out his hand. "Hi. I'm Thomas, and this is my daughter Olivia." He shook Tenmar's hand, noticing the blush across the blonde's face. "Sorry if we embarrassed you, she's just a very observant little girl." Thomas let go of Tenmar's hand, placing Olivia on the ground.

Tenmar's blush deepened as the little girl immediately grabbed onto his hand and smiled up at him. "What's your name, mister angle?"

"I-my name's Tenmar…" He replied, still feeling slightly shocked by the whole situation. There was something familiar about Thomas that he couldn't quite pinpoint. It couldn't be that he'd met them before, he would have remembered meeting someone like Thomas. He would have been a striking man; standing reasonable tall, with soft brown hair that seemed to fall just right around his face, he was strong looking, but and he had probing almost yellow green eyes. But all of that was thrown off by the almost constant absent-minded look across his face. _/It's his smell…/_ Tenmar realized as Thomas moved closer to him, glancing across the ocean. _/He seems familiar because he smells just a bit like home - Sasuke's house./_

Thomas smiled as he moved next to Tenmar. "It's a rare pleasure to meet you, Tenmar." And the way he said it, Tenmar felt that he really meant it. "Would you like to join my daughter and I for breakfast?"

Tenmar looked down at the little girl whose face shone eagerly up at him and then to Thomas, whose face was almost identical to his daughter's. He shrugged, giving in. "Sure, why not?"

A moment later Fetch rounded the corner. He had spied Tenmar heading towards the east-most point of the ship earlier, but had been busy with his work at the time. Now that he was done, he was eager to seen Tenmar's morning face, glowing in the sun rise. "Oi, Princess-" His words trailed off as he noticed Tenmar being led by the rich man from last night towards the stairs leading down – most likely headed towards the meal hall.

Thomas turned at the sound of the man's voice, noticing Tenmar stiffen as the words reached his ears. He grinned at the sailor he recognized from the night before, waving at the man slightly as he continued towards the stairs. As he dropped the wave he allowed his hand to land on Tenmar's shoulder. When Tenmar smiled questioningly at him he replied, "Isn't it exciting being on a ship like this?"

"It is a very different experience." Tenmar replied as he ducked his head into the door way over the stairs.

Thomas shot one last look at the sailor before ducking his own head under the doorway, smiling at the anger displayed clearly across his face.

End Chapter 10

Ahem, well I know some of you are gonna be pissed that they STILL didn't meet this chapter, but you see… I have a specific set of plans that NEED to happen before I can let them meet, you know? So please be patient for a chapter or (at the MOST) two more, ok?

As a side note, just to explain why they didn't smell or hear each other, keep in mind that 1) the ship is HUGE 2) it's moving, and Sasuke was down wind and to the left of Naruto and Gaara and 3) he's not EXPECTING to find Sasuke and vice versa (because Sasuke DID check all the cabins) so they're not picking up on the small amount of smell/sound that MAY reach them as a result… Anyway, if you guys want I'll attempt to draw a crude map of the ship. Send me requests if you want me to, ok?

-PK


	11. Early Morning Blues

Exodus  
Chapter 11 

By Psychic King

I LIVE! Erm... There's really no excuse for taking so very long to update. I've been dealing with a lot of 'life issues' recently (hospital stays and long forms about "do not resuscitate orders" for very close loved ones), and haven't been feeling especially creative, but that's really not an excuse. It does amaze me that is STILL giving me problems (which I know other people are not experiencing), but at LAST I've been able to get on long enough to actually update. I hope... Anyway, although it is very delayed, please enjoy the chapter...

Exodus  
Chapter 11

It was a hot day in Konoha, and excitement was in the air. The town was completely rebuilt and the long-delayed Chuunin exam was just around the corner. Iruka smiled as his adorable students chased each other around the grass, playing no game in specific, just happy to run. He grinned, thinking of what Naruto would have acted like on a day like this. He could almost see the blonde standing, hands on hips, loudly pronouncing that HE would win the next Chuunin exam. Try as Iruka might to explain that it wasn't something ONE person won, but rather an achievement for all who passed, and the towns that the passers came from as well, the blonde still insisted that he was best.

"Ara! Iruka-sensei!" Iruka turned as a feminine voice called to him, smiling as he saw Sakura approaching. Behind her walked Ino and Chouji. "I'm surprised to see you out right now…"

Iruka smiled, "It was such a nice day, and I thought we all could use some break time. They're so riled up from the upcoming exams." He noticed Sakura's smile widen as he spoke and he leaned towards his three ex-students. "How are your preparations going?"

Sakura crossed her arms, staring haughtily ahead. "Great. If only SOMEONE would get her pig-faced butt in gear."

"Humph. I'm just playing down my abilities so YOU can keep up." Ino replied, in an equally as haughty manner, flipping her hair as she did so.

"What was that, Ino-pig?" Sakura demanded, storming towards the other girl with fire in her eyes.

"You heard me-" Ino replied, moving closer to the other girl and growling.

"Now, now…" Asuna called, holding his hands out as he walked between them. The girls quieted, but continued to glare daggers at each other. Asuna sighed, leaning against the fence to the school yard, cigarette hanging limply from his mouth. "How did things turn out like this?"

Iruka smiled at him sympathetically. After Shikamaru and Sasuke had disappeared Sakura was filtered into Asuna's group. Well, it made sense, Kakashi couldn't do much with just Sakura and Asuna's group WAS missing a member with the disappearance of Shikamaru. "Who'd have thought that Shikamaru would do something as abnormal as chasing after Sasuke? I didn't even know they were close."

Chouji shook his head, stuffing a large handful of potato chips into his mouth. "They weren't." He said through his mouthful of food. He suffered most of all with the absence of the others. Although Sakura had lost both her team mates, she was now a member of a team that was MUCH closer to her own power, making her more important to the group. She would never admit it to Ino, but she was a little glad for the change. The pressure was off. However, poor Chouji was now stuck with two girls for teammates, neither of which were overly strong, and both spent ALL of their time arguing. To top it off he'd lost a best friend who hadn't said good bye, or at least, if he had, Chouji had not bothered to tell anyone. He didn't really complain but his food intake was growing.

"He'd been spending a lot of time with Naruto before he left; it probably has more to do with that." Sakura put in, taking a momentary break from glaring at Ino. Everyone fell silent for a moment, remembering how much time Shikamaru had been spending with Naruto's second oldest son in particular.

Ino spoke first, glaring at Sakura maliciously. "It's YOUR fault, you know. It wasn't enough to make SASUKE hate girls. NO, you had to go pester Shikamaru until he turned homo, too."

Sakura's eyes widened, instantaneous anger rushing through her body. There was complete silence for a long moment. Ino got herself battle ready, prepared for an onslaught from the pink haired girl, but to everyone's surprise, Sakura's shoulders slumped, her face lost all fight and she turned for the group, dashing away.

Iruka looked at Asuna in surprise. "THAT was unexpected."

Asuna nodded, "I'd better go talk to her…"

:BREAK:

Thomas gazed at Tenmar as the man played quietly with Olivia. It was pure luck that he'd run into him that morning. He'd noticed Tenmar the night before, as they were pulling away from that God-forsaken continent that they were finally free from. At the time, he would have approached the young man, but that annoying sailor, Fetch, wouldn't stop pestering him. It was just his luck that the ever-fickle Olivia approached Tenmar this morning and he finally got a chance to talk to him.

He watched Tenmar smile as Olivia danced around his feet. They had finished eating breakfast only a short while ago and were now sitting in the mess hall, watching the girl dance cheerfully around both men as they talked. Occasionally Tenmar would glance up, eyes catching his own and the blonde would smile absently. The last time it happened Tenmar glanced around before suddenly jumping to his feet. "I-I should go. My fam-"

Thomas reached a hand out, grasping onto one of Tenmar's. "You're not leaving us so soon, are you?"

Tenmar's face flushed. "I… I mean, my family will be looking for me, so I should-"

"Family?" Thomas replied, frown crossing his face and distorting his handsome features. He'd remembered a few companions around Tenmar, now that the blonde mentioned it. Olivia stopped dancing, serious look crossing her face as Thomas's mood darkened.

For a moment Tenmar thought she looked almost scared, but the moment passed as she went and laid her head on her father's leg, looking up at him with concerned eyes. "Yeah, I'm traveling with my father and brothers." Tenmar let the words slip without thinking, and immediately regretted them. Naruto looked more like a brother than a father. If Thomas started pushing to meet his family, Tenmar would have to put some distance between the two of them and himself.

"Ah, well, it's best not to let them wait." Thomas stood as Tenmar began to turn. "I don't suppose…" Thomas trailed off, feeling slightly foolish for trying to detain Tenmar. The blonde man turned back towards him, slight smile playing on his lips, question in his eyes. Thomas felt his heart skip a beat. "I don't suppose we could meet again? Perhaps for din-"

"There you are, Princess. I've been looking for you all morning." Thomas narrowed his eyes as the annoying sailor wrapped his arm around a surprised Tenmar's waist. He noticed Tenmar stiffen, but the sailor kept firm grip on the blonde, half leading half dragging him above deck. Thomas could hear Fetch's voice carrying down to them, "Naruto's been worried as a mother hen when he noticed you were gone." Thomas held back his urge to follow them as he felt a small hand on his leg. He glanced around to notice it was only himself and the girl left in the mess hall, her eyes were suddenly serious.

"We should get ready. We don't have much time. Father." Thomas nodded, turning to glimpse Tenmar one last time before the blonde disappeared completely above deck. The little girl by his side smirked. "If you really like him that much, we can always grab him before-" Thomas watched as she made a slashing motion across her neck with her hand.

Thomas shook his head, then hoisted the girl into his arms, his nice-guy persona back in place. "You, my dear, have the face of an angel, but I fear your mind is far too corrupt." The small girl giggled as her father tossed her lightly in the air. "Come now, back to our cabin for a small rest. We have work to do before dinner."

:BREAK:

Tenmar allowed Fetch to lead him above deck, his head still spinning with surprise. How had he gone from saying his goodbyes to Thomas to being pulled around by an ass like Fetch? And why wasn't he resisting? As the thought entered his mind, Tenmar had an instant urge to pull away from the man, but, no matter how hard his mind pushed, his body would not follow through.

"Oi! Fetch!" Tenmar's head swiveled as the man from yesterday called out angrily. "Get you're ass over here and help!"

"Later." Fetch snapped, gesturing to the man with his free hand and tightening his grip on Tenmar. He flung open the door that lead down to the cargo hold, as well as Tenmar and the others' sleeping quarters, not bothering to look back at the now even more annoyed man.

Once they were in the cargo hold, Tenmar attempted to pull away from the angry sailor, but Fetch would not let go. He pulled Tenmar down the hallway, away from the room his family was sleeping in, and yanked open a door. Inside were hundreds of boxes, some piled high as the ceiling, each one marked slightly different. "What's in here?" Tenmar asked, but Fetch was still in no mood to talk. Tenmar felt himself blushing as the strong scent of sweat and passion reached his nostrils.

"PEARSON!" Fetch bellowed, obviously catching the scent as well.

After a long moment a young head popped up over on of the shorter stacks of boxes. "Fetch- I mean, Sir! I didn't think - I mean I was just - I mean I…" The boy trailed off, his face a crimson red. "Can I help you, Sir?"

Fetch's eyes were narrowed, "Take your friend and get out."

The boy's eyes widened in noticeable fear, and Tenmar heard what sounded like a female voice gasping. "The Captain asked me to stand guard, Sir! I mean… Ahem, what friend would you be talking about?" As he spoke there were obvious sounds of two people dressing. He poked his head up once more, to stare strait into Fetch's angry glare. "Ah, right. Uh… You won't tell the captain about this, will you?"

"Get. Out." Fetch replied through clenched teeth.

Frightened, the boy dashed out from behind the boxes, only half-presentable. Behind him, clutching to his arm as if scared to death was a pretty-looking young woman, equally disheveled. Tenmar, feeling sorry for the two, shot the woman a sympathetic look as she dashed passed.

Fetch turned and watched the doorway, waiting until the sounds of the two were lost in the general sounds of the ship before turning to Tenmar. For a moment, Tenmar thought that Fetch was going to hit him and prepared himself for a fight. His defenses dropped when Fetch sagged against a row of boxes, finally releasing his iron grip. "Tenmar… Tenmar, Tenmar, Tenmar, Tenmar…" He murmured, looking down and shaking his head.

Tenmar stared at him. "What's WRONG with you?" He sighed, himself sagging against another row of crates. "What do you want?" He racked his hand through his hair in frustration.

"You…" Fetch replied softly. For a moment his eyes shone as he pushed himself off the crates and stepped towards Tenmar, hand outstretched. Tenmar jumped as Fetch's hand caressed his face gently, as his fingers slid through his unbound hair. "I wanted to cherish you, I wanted to take my time with you, I wanted to see you smile…" Fetch closed his eyes and withdrew his hand, clenching it. "But NOT at that man." Tenmar stepped towards the door as Fetch's face turned angry, but Fetch grabbed his arm, pulling him close again.

For the first time since they had met, Tenmar found himself really looking at Fetch. The man was tall, even taller than his father was, he was muscular and even had a handsome face (when he wasn't sneering) with his light brown hair falling every which way across it, but it was his eyes that Tenmar couldn't look away from. Even as Fetch stepped forward, anger melting away to something different, darker, Tenmar was unable to look away. Even as Fetch pulled him closer with one hand, cupping Tenmar's face with the other. Even as he leaned his own face in…

"I won't let you go to him, not without a fight." Fetch whispered.

Tenmar had enough time to dizzily wonder who Fetch was talking about before his lips were claimed. It wasn't the soft, loving kiss he'd imagined giving to Iruka, or the clumsy, awkward kiss he'd seen a young Naruto share with Sasuke. This kiss was all passion and need as Fetch pulled him closer, somehow making the large Tenmar feel small and powerless as he did all he could think to do, which was to hold on and return the kiss as best he could.

:BREAK:

"I hope Tenmar picked us up something to eat…" Uzu complained noisily as he flopped down on a pile of cloth. "When I went to get food a few minutes ago, they said..." Uzu sniffed, as if about to confide something truly unjust to his captive audience, which consisted of Ganten, Rin and Moab for the moment. "They said… We'd slept through breakfast!"

Ganten rolled his eyes, unimpressed by his brother's dramatics. "Where's Father?"

Uzu looked down, disappointed that his brother was unwilling to share in his pain. His eyes caught on Moab, who somehow had crawled into his lap and sat patting his leg in a sympathetic manner. The baby was almost too old looking to still be considered a baby. Uzu wondered briefly if all babies grew this fast. "He's looking for Tenmar. Fetch came down a while back, while YOU two were still sleeping," he shot Ganten and Rin a disapproving glance, which would have been taken more seriously if Uzu were not the family champion of sleeping through all hours of the day. "Fetch said he'd seen Tenmar go off with some shady guy and was all worried. Daddy said Tenmar could take care of himself, but I guess after a while he started to worry, too. Gaara went with him."

Ganten glanced at Rin, feeling slightly guilty for what he was about to ask. "I don't suppose you could find out if he's… OK?"

Rin shrugged, he was feeling much better now that they were away from Port Town. Apparently a while back, while he was still sleeping, they'd reached something called the Point, and now they were in the open sea. The only minds he could reach were the minds on the boat at this point, and there were far less minds here than most places he'd lived, as the only animal minds were buffered by the water. Human minds were more complex to pick through, but… "It's worth a try."

Rin had barely settled into his ritual of meditation to clear his mind, crossing his legs, evening his breathing and clearing his mind, when he jumped upright, face flushing. His eyes were wide as saucers. "I think… Tenmar's fine."

Ganten glanced at Rin's red face. "What? What's wrong?"

"I think I just disturbed something... private." Rin replied looking down as his face grew hotter.

Uzu leaned forward, eyes eager. "What, you mean you caught him jerking off?" His voice held a certain tone of malicious humor to it as he waited for Rin's response.

The brown haired boy shook his head, "No. He definitely wasn't alone..."

Uzu's eyes widened, as the news he heard was even juicier than he'd thought. "Who was he with?"

Rin shook his head, a look of amazement crossing his face. "I didn't stay in long enough to find out! That would be a betrayal of Tenmar's privacy!"

Ganten gave Uzu a dirty look as he stepped between his brother and his friend. "That's enough, Uzu."

Throwing himself back on the cloth, upset, Uzu sighed. "God! Finally some dirt on Tenmar and I don't even know the whole story! This is gonna drive me crazy!" He idly tossed Moab in the air as he thought of a way he could pry the rest of the story out of Tenmar. The near-toddler shrieked in delight as his favorite person absent mindedly played with him.

Rin sighed in relief as Uzu's thoughts trailed away from making him find out more to the story. His eyes fell on Ganten. He didn't have to be a mind reader to know that the thought of his eldest brother with a man (or woman, even) deeply disturbed the white haired boy. For once Rin was ridiculously glad he'd lied to the others and hadn't mentioned who Tenmar was with. Or the fact that they were only a few rooms away.

Rin was getting better at giving people privacy. It wasn't so much that he had actually pulled out of Tenmar's mind, or that he hadn't been reading it all morning, as he was reading the minds of everyone on this boat at all waking hours. What he recently had become good at, however, was pushing most minds to the background, like other people did with sound. It was not that Rin wasn't aware that somewhere on the ship a woman was baking bread, that a rich older man was getting ready to grab some poor girl's ass, that someone had smuggled their pet puppy on the ship, that someone was looking for their absentee companion… But none of it stood out any more to him than if someone were walking through a busy market place and catching snippets of information as they passed.

The only person whose mind Rin couldn't seem to push to the background was sitting right next to him. Rin found himself glancing at Ganten again. He was trying to avoid thinking about Tenmar and, as a result, was making lists of things they would need to purchase once they got off the ship. At the same time he was calculating how much longer they were likely to be on the ship, taking into account wind resistance and the like. Rin felt his blush, which had almost disappeared, return as he watched Ganten stand and begin to pace. He wasn't sure what he found so enrapturing about the white haired boy, but he couldn't tear his eyes, or his mind, away.

Pausing his pacing, Ganten leaned down over the flustered Rin, placing his hand on the boy's forehead. "Are you feeling alright? Your face is still so red."

:BREAK:

Naruto sighed as he paced across the deck of the ship again. So far he'd had no luck in locating his wayward eldest son. What he had constantly found himself catching wind of was a scent very similar to Sasuke's. The thought was driving him crazy as his attention was divided between locating Tenmar and locating the source of that scent, and if necessary, forcing the owner of it over the edge of the ship. He couldn't abide by other people having the same scent as someone so precious. Anyway, as it was, for the rest of the trip the blonde was certain he'd drive himself crazy looking for a Sasuke that simply couldn't be on the ship.

Finally, by use of sheer willpower, Naruto managed to focus on Tenmar's scent long enough to lead him to a young man, holding a small girl by the railing. The two were silently watching the sea roll by. As Naruto moved closer, he gritted his teeth. Also clinging to the man faintly was the Sasuke-scent. Almost immediately, Naruto found himself disliking the man.

"Hey, you." Naruto approached the man, about to grab his arm, but the man turned to face him before Naruto reached him. There was a dark, almost insanely unpleasant look on the man's face for an instant, but then, as if it had never been there, the man smiled in an almost innocent manner.

"Can I help you?" Thomas asked, eying the man before him. He'd not been in the mood to be interrupted. But then he'd recognized this man as someone who had been around Tenmar the night before and his mood cleared slightly.

"I'm looking for a boy, around 20 years old? Looks a lot like me." Naruto replied without even the slightest hint of his normal jocular self. Behind him he could feel Gaara also scowling at the man. Although Gaara still scowled at most people, Naruto took the boy's displeasure as a sign that Gaara also sensed something amiss about the man. He'd been afraid that he'd been biased against him from his conversation with Fetch the night before - Naruto had no doubt that this was the man Fetch was talking about, the one that wasn't quite right.

"You must be… one of Tenmar's brothers?" Thomas asked, acting as if he hadn't noticed that both men were glaring at him. "I'd recognize that height and stunning blonde hair anywhere." He glanced around Naruto to Gaara, unable to pick out even the slightest hit of Tenmar in the un-charming boy. He shrugged, holding out his hand. "My name is Thomas, and this little one is my daughter, Olivia." The small girl he indicated squirmed uncomfortably in the face of two such aggressive stares.

For a moment Naruto considered grabbing the man's hand and tossing both he and his daughter over the edge of the ship, but the insane moment passed. Holding out his own hand, he grudgingly accepted the handshake. "Naruto. Can you tell me where Tenmar went?"

Thomas nodded, eyes widening in surprise. "A sailor came by and grabbed him only a short while ago. He indicated that he'd be taking Tenmar to your cabin. Where is your cabin, by the way? I'd love to stop by and see Tenmar, perhaps greet his - er, your father…" Thomas trailed off as Naruto, having gotten the information he needed, turned away from him. The angry redhead followed suit. Thomas watched for a moment as the two headed towards the stairs to the cargo hold of the ship. "Interesting."

Olivia stared after them, frightened mannerisms suddenly dropped. "What an unpleasant man."

"No," Thomas replied, shaking his head. "No. He's usually a very happy man. Didn't you notice the laughter lines around his face? He just doesn't like us."

Olivia looked down at her cute dress and pouted. "Who couldn't wike me?" She asked innocently.

Thomas glanced skeptically at the girl in his arms, "Do you really want me to answer that?"

Before she could reply, another unwelcome interruption appeared before them. Sasuke walked up to him, crossing his arms and leaning against the rail. "You shouldn't go off on your own all morning, you'll blow our cover." He said in a low voice, so no one else could hear him.

"Now that we're past the Point, we don't really need to worry about it as much…" Thomas replied, hoping that he wouldn't be forced to fight the young ninja for his privacy.

Sasuke shrugged, not really caring. His real reason for approaching the man was something very different. "Who were you just talking to?"

Thomas stared at him blankly for a moment, wondering if he'd heard any of his conversation with Olivia. His reason for bringing the boys on the ship was so they could pay his way. He was hoping they wouldn't make him regret the decision.

"I thought I caught a glimpse of a tall, blonde man." Sasuke replied to Thomas's confused stare. His eyes held an intensity that told Thomas this was not just an idle question.

"It was no one." Thomas lied, turning back to the ocean. "Just a sailor." It wouldn't do to have Sasuke and Shikamaru interrupting Tenmar and his family during their last hours together.

:BREAK:

Tenmar finally yanked himself out of Fetch's heady embrace as the man began to grow a little too passionate for the inexperienced blonde. He realized dizzily that he'd just received his first, second and third kiss, all in one moment, without any thought on his side as to whether he wanted it. Glancing up, Tenmar's eyes caught on Fetch's own dark brown eyes, filled with desire and passion. Before he could get pulled in again, Tenmar yanked his eyes away, forcing them to stare at the ground. He fought desperately to clear his head, to calm his pounding heart, to slow his rapid breathing.

Fetch was determined not to be so easily set aside. Putting all his emotions into one word, he stepped closer to the blonde, "Tenmar…" But Tenmar persistently refused to look at him, turning his head away. Undaunted, Fetch closed the distance between them, laying gentle kisses on Tenmar's cheek, his ear, his neck, his collarbone.

Mustering more strength, Tenmar once again pushed Fetch away. Steeling his resolve, he glared at Fetch. "No."

Surprised by both the shove and the glare, Fetch fell to the ground, bumping the back of his head on a crate. "Ow." He rubbed his head, standing. The bump was also clearing his mind, and he remembered, he hadn't intended on any of this. He had simply intended on telling Tenmar to stay away from Thomas. The kiss had been… Well, the kiss had been amazing, but Fetch really hadn't meant to do it. He glanced at Tenmar, sheepishly, praying the blonde hadn't already began to hate him. "Look, I didn't mean…" He trailed off, not liking the way his words were about to sound. "I only wanted…"

"I'm sorry." Tenmar broke in quietly, walking behind Fetch and examining his bump with shaking hands. "I didn't mean to push you so hard." The bump was already swelling, Fetch's head may very well look deformed for a couple of weeks, until he started to heal.

"No. It's my fault." Fetch replied, turning around suddenly, as Tenmar continued to gently prod at the growing lump. Realizing how close he was now standing to the blonde, Fetch took a step back. "I shouldn't have jumped you like that. I just - Controlling myself has never been a strong point of mine." He looked down, aware that Tenmar was expecting him to continue with his apology. "It's just, when I saw you talking to that man… Tenmar, stay away from him. It's not just that I'm jealous," Fetch added, slightly uncomfortable at having to admit his feelings like this, "but there's something not right about him."

Fetch watched as Tenmar's face went from confused to a look of shocked remembrance. With a sad snort, Fetch leaned gingerly against a crate, taking special care not to lean his head against anything, "Now, unless you wanna continue where we left off," he offered without much hope, "you'd better get back to your friends. I'll be here finishing out Pearson's shift for the next few hours, if you need me."

Tenmar, finally remembering that he was annoyed at Fetch, and, in fact, hadn't liked the man very much until just a few moments ago, shot Fetch an angry look. "Me? Need you? I don't think so."

"That's what they all say, Princess." Fetch replied, slipping back into his annoying sailor persona. "But it's always them that come looking for me, come nightfall."

For a moment Tenmar wondered how true Fetch's words were. The man obviously had some skill, if his kiss was any indication. That meant lots of practice, didn't it/_How many girls have there been?_/ Tenmar wondered, but his reply was simply, "Don't flatter yourself." And with that he walked out of the storage room, slamming the door behind him.

:BREAK:

End Chapter 11

Well, as you might have noticed, there was still no connection between Naruto and Sasuke... Also, there wasn't much screen time for Naruto or Sasuke... This is a problem, and I know it. BUT, rest assured, next chapter will have very little awake Tenmar time. hint, hint Please, mail comments and criticism about the chapter to me (psychicking at gmail dot com)! I need to know if anyone still cares... (As I wallow in my own, undeserved self-pity).

-PK


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